Prince Demah Barnes

Tempat: Boston

Kematian: 1778

Biografi:

Prince Demah Barnes (c. 1745—March 1778) was an American painter of African ancestry who was formerly enslaved and active in Boston in the late 1700s. He is known for being the only known enslaved artist working in colonial America whose paintings have survived. Demah was purchased by Henry Barnes in 1769 with the intention of improving his painting skills. He received lessons from Robert Edge Pine, a British portrait painter, in London in 1771. Demah painted three known surviving portraits, including that of William Duguid, a Scottish immigrant textile merchant based in Boston, which is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Demah enlisted in the Massachusetts militia as a free man in April 1777 and died of an unknown illness the following year. He bequeathed his estate to his mother, Daphney, and was buried at Trinity Church, Boston.