Abstract
The vibrant black community living in Philadelphia during the 1830s counted among its members a wide array of professionals, including merchants, educators, master craftsmen, and artists.In 1833, an article published in the Genius of Universal Emancipation, aBaltimore-based abolitionist periodical, and subsequently reprinted in the Liberator noted the recent artistic turn taken by twenty-four-year-old Robert Douglass Jr., “the son of a very respectable colored gentleman” in Philadelphia. Douglass was already well established in the “business of sign and ornamental painting”—a line of work, the writers hastened to add, in which “few persons in our country, if any, have made greater prof ciency”— and “evidence of his skill” could be observed not just in his shop but in the “many other parts of the city” where his creations were displayed. In addition to ornamental works, the artist had recently taken up portrait painting and was now “eminently successful” in both pursuits. Douglass’s turn from sign-painting to portraiture would provide him with a livelihood—and connections to the abolitionist movement in the United States and Britain—for decades.