That They Might Be Lovely

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

An archival pigment print photograph of collaged images featuring a photographic portrait of an enslaved woman named Delia taken by Louis Agassiz in 1850, shown in silhouette against an 1857 map of the United States. The map illustrates the populations of enslaved persons by state and county with the North in green, the South in pink, and the West in off-white. Delia's profile is dark except for the back part of her head, in which is set a black-and-white photographic image of three young women captured by the artist's grandfather. The women are depicted seated, laughing and smiling into the camera with a windowed brick building in the background. The print is mounted on black sintra pvc board with back frame and a label with the artist, title, date, medium, and dimensions.

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