Bouquet of Roses

This plaque is the only known decorative artwork produced by Porter, a painter who trained at the National Academy of Design, maintained a studio in New York between 1875 and 1877, and continued to exhibit his work in local venues the following decade. The tile dates to his association with the Society of Decorative Arts in Hartford, Connecticut; Porter was one of the few professional artists, and the only man, to participate in the society’s inaugural exhibition in April 1880. Around that time—perhaps inspired by the Hartford home of Samuel Clemens (also known as Mark Twain), designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Associated Artists—Porter was experimenting with other Aesthetic subjects in oil and watercolor painting, the only African American painter documented to do so.