Unknown Sitters

The exhibition Unknown Sitters will display portraits from The Historic New Orleans Collection’s holdings of people who are unidentified in the historical record. The sitters’ identities were lost or erased from history for a variety of reasons. When family estates were sold, beloved portraits were divorced from their historical narratives. Sometimes artists did not record the name of sitters, particularly when the sitter was a paid model.

Despite the many unknowns, these works of art have much to share. The sitters’ clothing and surroundings, written inscriptions and signatures, and the artists’ biographies allow curators to craft basic narratives of the lives and times of the people depicted. When grouped together, these works reflect the field of portraiture in New Orleans art history and illuminate the gaps and biases in the historical record. Portraits of children, the elderly, women, and people of color were more likely to lose their identities than those of white men. Also, when artists, collectors, and museum curators assigned titles to portraits of unknown sitters of color, they often emphasized race. In this exhibition, we have reworded titles that prioritized race to focus on the unique individuals portrayed.

With Unknown Sitters, we will explore the power of imagination beyond the traditional sphere of historical inquiry and welcome a wider group of thinkers and storytellers to engage with historical portraiture. These portraits of mystery stand in for the lives not represented in history and ask us all to remember—and to imagine.