(RELIGION) [ALLEN REVEREND RICHARD] Contemporary Silhouette

Sale 2137 - Lot 346

Unsold

Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 5,000

A CONTEMPORARY SILHOUETTE OF REV. RICHARD ALLEN (RELIGION.) [ALLEN, REVEREND RICHARD]. Contemporary Silhouette portrait of a black minister, quite likely that of Richard Allen; 2 1/2 x 1 inches black paint with some graphite and white highlights, on an oval piece of white paper 3 x 2 5/8 inches; some light, early damp-staining to the white background in the outer margins. The portrait is backed with heavy laid paper common to the later 18th, early 19th century; there are signs of red sealing wax on the paper backing. Np (Pennsylvania?), circa 1831

Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

Richard Allen (1760 -1831), African-American pastor and founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church was born a slave to the noted Quaker lawyer Benjamin Chew at Germantown, Pennsylvania (now a part of Philadelphia) in 1760. Allen, his parents and 3 other children, were sold by Chew to Stokley Sturgis, whose plantation was near Dover, Delaware. Allen recalled that Sturgis was a very tender and humane man who was more like a father to his slaves than a master. Allen taught himself to read and write, and attended Methodist services. At 17, he began evangelizing. After working as a woodcutter for the Revolutionary army, Allen earned enough to buy his freedom and immediately set about preaching. In 1787, Allen, together with Absalom Jones, formed the Free African Religious Society, but split off after the Society adopted some of the practices of the Quakers. In 1796, Allen and ten others from the Society formed the Mother Bethel Church, the first African Methodist Episcopal Church. Allen was made first Bishop of the Church in 1816.