John Brown's Blessing

1867

Oil on canvas

Unframed: 7 ft. 1/4 in. × 60 1/4 in. (214 × 153 cm)
Framed: 7 ft. 5 in. × 65 in. × 2 in. (226.1 × 165.1 × 5.1 cm)

Gift of the children of Thomas S. Noble and Mary C. Noble, in their memory

1939.250

In 1859, John Brown's planned uprising of enslaved peoples, raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia and subsequent execution galvanized the nation. Abolitionists celebrated him as a martyr to the antislavery cause while southern whites denounced him and his northern supporters. Thomas S. Noble's heroic life-size painting depicts Brown's apocryphal last act: kissing an enslaved child on the way to the gallows. To commemorate the eighth anniversary of Brown's execution, John Brown's Blessing was publicly exhibited in Boston, where it received a lukewarm reception. A local newspaper reported: "[The anniversary was] appropriately commemorated by the presentation to the Boston public of T. S. Noble's picture of Brown's passage to the Scaffold, when he stopped on his way to bless a negro child… Mr. Noble is a Southerner, and served in the rebel army four years, but he regarded the execution of Brown as one of the great historic events of the century, and has lost friends and position at home by representing SO unwelcome a matter to the South… We can hardly call it a great picture; yet there is much food for reflection and observation in it...."

DescriptionJohn Brown (1800-1859) of Osawatomie, being led to his execution at Charles Town, West Virginia, December 2, 1859. Brown stops to bless a young black child held forward by a kneeling mother. Two white children, accompanied by their black nurse, look on. Surrounded by soldiers, his arms bound, Brown stands tall and resolute but turns a gentle gaze on the child.

SignedSigned and dated at lower right: T. S. Noble 1867.

InscribedInscribed on back of canvas: T. S. Noble and John Brown / by T. S. Noble / C[incinnati], U.S. A.

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