(SLAVERY ABOLITION) Pair of photographs of an early version

Sale 2631 - Lot 80

Price Realized: $ 625

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900

(SLAVERY & ABOLITION.) Pair of photographs of an early version of Thomas Ball's controversial Emancipation Memorial sculpture. Albumen photographs, 6 1/4 x 4 1/2 inches, on original heavy paper mounts with embossed stamps of photographer Longworth Powers, and dated and captioned on verso; photographs clean, minor wear to mounts. Florence, Italy, 15 March 1872

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Thomas Ball conceived this tribute to Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation in 1865. A variant version was later the winner of a competition for a full-scale Emancipation Memorial, which was unveiled in Washington in 1876. The sculpture drew immediate criticism from Frederick Douglass, who observed that it "showed the Negro on his knee when a more manly attitude would have been indicative of freedom." It remains controversial today.

Shown here are two views of Ball's original marble sculpture, photographed in Florence where he resided from 1865 to 1897. Among other differences, this earlier version shows the enslaved man wearing a liberty cap. The present location of this example is unknown, although the Chazen Museum in Wisconsin holds a nearly identical 1873 version.