Property of a Lady  Circa 1850 Virgin Islands school A wedd...

Hammer

£13,000

Property of a Lady 

Circa 1850
Virgin Islands school
A wedding party of free people of colour
Oil on canvas

Provenance:
Christie's 2008

An extraordinary and rare depiction of affluent free people of colour, enjoying their newfound emancipation at a joyful wedding party. Denmark was the first nation that prohibited transatlantic slave transport. The desire for freedom also spread to the enslaved laborers in the Danish colony in the West Indies. On July 2 1848, they rose up in an initial rebellion on St. Croix. Plantations were burned down, and the town of Frederiksted was besieged by rebels, so only the town’s fort, Fort Frederiksværn, remained in Danish hands. When Peter von Scholten came the following day to Frederiksted, the situation was about to get completely out of control. Scholten was under heavy pressure and chose to declare slavery abolished with immediate effect. He called out over the enraged enslaved laborers: “Now you are free, you are hereby emancipated.” In the following days, local officials worked together with the rebellion’s leader John Gottlieb, called General Buddhoe, to calm tempers and to get society to function on the new terms with the new free workers.

Dimensions:
(Canvas) 28 in. (H) x 36 in. (W)
(Frame) 36 in. (H) x 43.5 in. (W)