How History Unfolds on Paper: Important Americana from the Eric C. Caren Collection, Part X

(New York: Kimball, 1863). Hand-colored carte de visite; printed caption at bottom "Isaac and Rosa, Emancipated Slave Children, From the Free Schools of Louisiana". Clipped at corners; trimmed along bottom edge excising imprint; wear in bottom right corner; staining in upper half. 3 3/4 x 2 5/16 in. (95 x 59 mm).

A scarce carte de visite depicting Isaac White and Rosina Downs, born into slavery in the South and freed by the Union Army in 1863. One of a series of photographs sold by the Freedman's Bureau to raise money for their schools and hospitals in Louisiana.

A January 30, 1864 article in Harper's Weekly provides a biography of the two emancipated children: "The group of emancipated slaves whose portraits I send you were brought by Colonel Hanks and Mr. Phillip Bacon from New Orleans, where they were set free by General Butler. Mr. Bacon went to New Orleans with our army, and was for eighteen months employed as Assistant-Superintendent of Freedmen, under the care of Colonel Hanks. He established the first school in Louisiana for emancipated slaves, and these children were among his pupils. He will soon return to Louisiana to resume his labor...Rosina Downs is not quite seven years old. She is a fair child, with blonde complexion and silky hair. Her father is in the rebel army. She has one sister as white as herself, and three brothers who are darker. Her mother, a bright mulatto, lives in New Orleans in a poor hut, and has hard work to support her family...Isaac White is a black boy of eight years; but none the less intelligent than his whiter companions. He has been in school about seven months, and I venture to say that not one boy in fifty would have made as much improvement in that space of time..."

RBH locates only one other example of this photograph at auction, that one without hand-coloring.