MS01.01.03.B01.F25.030

4

to have settled in Annapolis just prior to the end of the year 1708.
There he set up studio and made known his desire to paint likenesses
of the local townspeople. One of his first assignments at the
easel was that of portraying the likeness of Eleanor Darnell and
that of her brother Henry. (SLIDE NO. 1) [u]The Portrait of Henry
Darnell, III[/u] was painted around 1710. It is executed in oil and
is on a canvas which measures approximately 54" and 44". The principal
subject in the painting is the young Henry at the tender age of
eight. The well dressed youngster stands straight and tall against
a background of palaces and gardens that would rival Versailles.
These props were obviously imagined by the artist as an important
incentive of class and perhaps equally so a selling tool for the
have-nots who dreamed of such luxury and splendor since no such
dwellings yet existed in America at that time. Thus, our interest
turns from the young Henry, who was later to become the Collector
of Customs for the Potomac and Receiver of Revenues for Lord
Baltimore, to the portrait of his faithful, though nameless black
servant. He is a young man of some years perhaps beyond Henry.
The black servant, our first recorded image of a Black person in an
American painting, is also well dressed and wears those garments
that are normally associated with servants who attend to the affairs
of the house, not those of the field. Kuehn does not reveal to us
the exact height of the servant but places him behind the figure
of the young master clutching with one hand the partridge no doubt
felled by the arrow of the well dressed Darnell youngster. We are
certain that the figure of the black servant was not meant by the