Edward Satchwell Fraser, Jr.
1803
29 3/4 x 24 3/4 in. (75.57 x 62.87 cm)
Henry Raeburn
(Scottish,
1756–1823)
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Credit Line:
Bequest of Charles Phelps Taft and Anna Sinton Taft
Accession Number:
1931.425
Currently on View in:
Portraits & Prosperity (7)
Exhibition History
New York. Scott and Fowles. Paintings from the Collection of C. P. Taft, November 1909, no. 10.
Washington. Seattle Art Museum. Expressions of the Brush: Paintings by Dutch and British Masters, December 22, 2001–March 9, 2003 (during TMA renovation).
Ohio. Cincinnati Museum Center. Borrowed Gems from the Taft Museum of Art, July 23, 2021–February 21, 2022.
Gallery Label
Seventeen-year-old Edward Satchwell Fraser, Jr. (1786–1813) wears a green-and-blue tartan jacket to honor his Scottish Highland heritage. The Fraser patriarch commissioned portraits of his five sons, including this one, to hang in the family manor in Inverness, Scotland, while the brothers traveled to far-flung British colonies in pursuit of wealth and adventure. The same year this portrait was painted, Edward joined his older brother James Baillie Fraser in present-day Guyana, South America, to manage the family’s cotton and sugar cane plantations.
More to the Story
The financial success the Fraser family hoped for in Guyana relied on the labor of enslaved individuals trafficked from Africa to plant, tend, and harvest crops under horrific conditions. Though Great Britain outlawed the slave trade in 1807, slavery itself remained legal in British colonies until 1833. Plantation owners in Guyana then replaced the enslaved workforce with indentured servants recruited in India. This system, barely distinguishable from slavery, endured until 1917.
Provenance
Commissioned by the family of the sitter; by descent to Philip Affleck Fraser, Reelig, Easter Moniack, Scotland; (consigned to Christie's, London); purchased by A. Wertheimer, October 7, 1897 (no. 27). (Acquired by Scott and Fowles, New York, NY); purchased by Charles Phelps Taft [1843-1929] and Anna Sinton Taft [1850-1931], Cincinnati, OH, October 17, 1906; donated to the Cincinnati Institute of Fine Arts, Cincinnati, OH, May 21, 1927 [1]; transferred to the Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, OH, September 1, 2006 [2].
Notes:
[1]. The Cincinnati Institute of Fine Arts (CIFA) was formed by Charles Phelps Taft and Anna Sinton Taft on March 22, 1927 as a non-profit corporation to stimulate the development of art and music in the City of Cincinnati and run the Taft Museum of Art, which opened in 1932. The Tafts offered $1 million for a permanent endowment fund, on the condition that the community raise $2.5 million in matching funds, which was achieved by December 3, 1928. [2]. Until August 31, 2006, the Museum was owned by CIFA, administered by CIFA’s Board of Trustees, and governed by the Taft Museum Board of Overseers. On September 1, 2006, the Museum legally separated from CIFA and began operations as its own incorporated 501(c)(3) entity. This separate incorporation led to the transfer to the separate entity after August 31, 2006 of all tangible assets comprising the Taft collection.
Collection Lists
This artwork is in the following list(s):