Rare Photo of Slave Children Found in NC Attic
Experts say rare Civil War-era photo of slave children found in NC attic, sold for $30,000
The Associated Press

By NICOLE NORFLEET Associated Press Writer
RALEIGH, N.C. June 10, 2010 (AP)


Rare Photo of Slave Children Found in NC Attic
An undated rare photo provided by Keya Morgan, found in a North Carolina attic, depicts two slave... Expand
An undated rare photo provided by Keya Morgan, found in a North Carolina attic, depicts two slave children, art historians say. In April, the photo was found at a moving sale in Charlotte, accompanied by a document detailing the sale of John for $1,150 in 1854. The picture was purchased for $30,000 by collector Keya Morgan. Collapse
(Courtesy of Keya Morgan, LincolnImages.com/AP Photo)

A haunting 150-year-old photo found in a North Carolina attic shows a young black child named John, barefoot and wearing ragged clothes, perched on a barrel next to another unidentified young boy.

Art historians believe it's an extremely rare Civil War-era photograph of children who were either slaves at the time or recently emancipated.

The photo, which may have been taken in the early 1860s, was a testament to a dark part of American history, said Will Stapp, a photographic historian and founding curator of the National Portrait Gallery's photographs department at the Smithsonian Institution.

"It's a very difficult and poignant piece of American history," he said. "What you are looking at when you look at this photo are two boys who were victims of that history."

In April, the photo was found at a moving sale in Charlotte, accompanied by a document detailing the sale of John for $1,150, not a small sum in 1854.

New York collector Keya Morgan said he paid $30,000 for the photo album including the photo of the young boys and several family pictures and $20,000 for the sale document. Morgan said the deceased owner of the home where the photo was found was thought to be a descendant of John.

A portrait of slave children is rare, Morgan said.

"I buy stuff all the time, but this shocked me," he said.

What makes the picture an even more compelling find is that several art experts said it was created by the photography studio of Mathew Brady , a famous 19th-century photographer known for his portraits of historical figures such as President Abraham Lincoln and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Stapp said the photo was probably not taken by Brady himself but by Timothy O'Sullivan, one of Brady's apprentices. O'Sullivan took a multitude of photos depicting the carnage of the Civil War.

In 1862, O'Sullivan famously photographed a group of some of the first slaves liberated after Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.