Elizabeth Grant Bankson Beatty (Mrs. James Beatty) and Her Daughter Susan

Joshua Johnson was the first known African American painter to gain professional recognition in the United States. Listed in the 1816 Baltimore city directory as a “free householder of Colour,” he had been freed by his enslaver (and father) around 1782 after apprenticing as a blacksmith. Described as “self-taught” in a newspaper advertisement, Johnson attracted local patrons for his portraits from the city’s artisan and middle-class families.

Elizabeth Beatty is fashionably dressed, wearing a circlet of glass beads that accentuates her brown hair and gray eyes. The child’s clothes are equally elegant; she sports a high-waisted, white-muslin gown and holds a brightly colored strawberry, a delicacy often featured in Johnson’s portraits. (Source: Art Institute of Chicago)