Jun 27, 2024 - Sale 2675

Sale 2675 - Lot 269

Price Realized: $ 3,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
(SLAVERY & ABOLITION.) Carte-de-visite portrait of Sojourner Truth: "I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance." Albumen photograph, 3½ x 2 inches, on original mount with printed caption, photographer's backmark on verso; minimal wear. Rochester, NY: N.B. Baker, photographer, "1864" [but circa late 1866 or early 1867]
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Sojourner Truth (circa 1797-1883) escaped from slavery in 1826 and became one of the most influential orators of the abolitionist movement. She produced and copyrighted her own series of carte-de-visite portraits in various poses to support her work--and maintain control over her image. This is one of the very few cartes-de-visite of Truth which names the photographer, one of three poses from a sitting in Rochester, NY. However, it still bears her distinctive personal 1864 copyright notice on verso in addition to the photographer's backmark. During this period, she was attempting to launch a home for freedmen in Rochester, which was the home city of her abolitionist friends Amy and Isaac Post.

In this image, she wears a "pressed dress with a light sheen. . . . She stands against a column with her head tilted and her gaze deflected uncharacteristically to the side, suggesting an atypical wistfulness. This Baker standing portrait is the only picture from the 1860s in which she looks away from us. . . . She holds neither cane nor knitting but a handkerchief that hides her maimed hand; her clothing appears elegant, and the column is immense"--Grigsby, "Enduring Truths: Sojourner's Shadows and Substance," pages 76-79 and images 58A-B.