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Joshua Johnson(American, circa 1763-circa 1824)A Pair of Portraits: Major John Nelson Black and Agnes "Nancy" Meek Hasson Black of Charlestown, Maryland, circa 1815-1816
2 – 12 August 2025, 12:00 EDT
Online, Skinner Marlborough, MassachusettsUS$300,000 - US$500,000
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Joshua Johnson (American, circa 1763-circa 1824)
A Pair of Portraits: Major John Nelson Black and Agnes "Nancy" Meek Hasson Black of Charlestown, Maryland, circa 1815-1816
unsigned
oil on canvas, unframed
each 36 1/4 x 29 1/8 in.
unsigned
oil on canvas, unframed
each 36 1/4 x 29 1/8 in.
Footnotes
Provenance
John Nelson Black (1787-1847) and Agnes "Nancy" Meek Hasson Black (1778-1860), Charlestown, Maryland.
James Hasson (1803-71), Charlestown, Maryland.
Helen Hasson Hazel (c. 1845-1935), Chesapeake City, Maryland.
Josephine Black Cantwell (1857-1945), North East, Maryland.
Edna Maud Black Caulk (1876-1965), Charlestown, Maryland.
Dr. Harry Arthur Cantwell (1883-1972), North East, Maryland.
John Arthur Cantwell (1913-78), North East, Maryland, thence by descent to consignor.
Literature
Frick Art Research Library Photoarchive, Joshua Johnson, "Mrs. John Nelson Black (Agnes ("Nancy") Meek)," FARL 53289; "Major John Nelson Black," FARL 53290. Photographs from Kodachrome transparencies lent by Dr. J. Hall Pleasants, courtesy of Dr. H.A. Cantwell.
For detailed summaries of the Hasson and Black family properties in Charlestown, see Orlando Ridout IV, "The Indian Queen," Winterthur Portfolio 5 (1969): 189-204; Pamela James Blumgart, At the Head of the Bay: a Cultural and Architectural History of Cecil County, Maryland (Elkton: Cecil Historical Trust, 1996), CE-127 and CE-128, p. 377, 380-1; and Gerard William Wittstadt, Jr., "Historic Charles Town Properties," Cecil County Decoys, https://cecilcountydecoys.com/part01/chapter03 [accessed 17 March 2025].
Notes
Born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, John Nelson Black grew up in Cecil County, Maryland, where he practiced law and served in the state militia, ultimately attaining the rank of Major. Agnes "Nancy" Meek was born in Port Deposit and, in 1802, first married John Hasson (d. 1808), who owned a store and hotel with his relative Jonas Owens (1768-1829) in Charlestown. The Hassons had two surviving children, James (1803-71) and John (1806-72). Upon his marriage to the widowed Agnes in 1809, Black assumed control of Hasson's businesses, which remained in the family until 1966. These portraits were likely painted around the same time as those of the Hasson brothers and of the Blacks' first son, William Washington Black (1814-87), attributed to Joshua Johnson by Dr. J. Hall Pleasants and donated to the Winterthur Museum by another descendant, Mrs. John W. Perkins, in 1984 (acc. no. 1984.6A and 1984.7A).
Joshua Johnson is among the most prolific and earliest Black professional painters in the United States, with over eighty portraits attributed to him. Trained as a blacksmith, he worked as a portraitist from circa 1795-1825 in Baltimore, Maryland, a city boasting one of the country's largest free black populations in the Federal Era. Johnson remains unusual in his field for establishing a practice in one city, rather than traveling the country in search of commissions. Johnson's clientele included prominent citizens in the circle of Charles Willson Peale, but his portraits predominantly depict his neighbors, working- and middle-class Baltimore families. Portraits by Johnson are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, and Colonial Williamsburg.