The Young Artist

ca. 1840

Thomas Mickell Burnham American, 1818-1866

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About the Artwork

A well-dressed white child draws a chalk portrait of a Black child on the bottom of wood basket. Thomas Burnham painted several versions of this subject in the early 1840s, often pairing them with a 12-line poem that argued that just as a neophyte artist should not be judged by the crudity of an initial effort, so a Black person should not be judged by the color of their skin:

The heart is often black as night,

Encased in flesh of purest white;

If that [the heart] be pure in black or fair

God makes his holy temple there.

Title The Young Artist

Artwork Date ca. 1840

Artist Thomas Mickell Burnham

Life Dates 1818-1866

Nationality Please note: Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events. Some definitions include: Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation. American

Culture Please note: Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group. ----------

Medium Oil on canvas

Dimensions Unframed: 20 7/8 × 28 3/8 inches (53 × 72.1 cm)

Classification Paintings

Department American Art before 1950

Credit Museum Purchase, Dexter M. Ferry Jr. Fund

Accession Number This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection. Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings. For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups. 2019.3

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Provenance

(Adler & Conkright Arts LLC, Miami, Florida, USA);
2019-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

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Exhibition History

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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.

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