The Scourged Back
On loan to The Met
This work of art is currently on loan to the museum.Gordon, a runaway slave seen with severe whipping scars in this haunting carte-de-visite portrait, is one of the many African Americans whose lives Sojourner Truth endeavored to better. Perhaps the most famous of all known Civil War–era portraits of slaves, the photograph dates from March or April 1863 and was made in a camp of Union soldiers along the Mississippi River, where the subject took refuge after escaping his bondage on a nearby Mississippi plantation.
On Saturday, July 4, 1863, this portrait and two others of Gordon appeared as wood engravings in a special Independence Day feature in Harper’s Weekly. McPherson & Oliver’s portrait and Gordon’s narrative in the newspaper were extremely popular, and photography studios throughout the North (including Mathew B. Brady’s) duplicated and sold prints of The Scourged Back. Within months, the carte de visite had secured its place as an early example of the wide dissemination of ideologically abolitionist photographs.
On Saturday, July 4, 1863, this portrait and two others of Gordon appeared as wood engravings in a special Independence Day feature in Harper’s Weekly. McPherson & Oliver’s portrait and Gordon’s narrative in the newspaper were extremely popular, and photography studios throughout the North (including Mathew B. Brady’s) duplicated and sold prints of The Scourged Back. Within months, the carte de visite had secured its place as an early example of the wide dissemination of ideologically abolitionist photographs.
Artwork Details
- Title: The Scourged Back
- Artist: Attributed to McPherson & Oliver (American, active New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1860s)
- Date: April 1863
- Medium: Albumen silver print from glass negative
- Dimensions: Image: 8.7 x 5.5 cm (3 7/16 x 2 3/16 in.)
- Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: International Center of Photography, Purchase, with funds provided by the ICP Acquisitions Committee, 2003 (183.2003)
- Curatorial Department: Photographs