Hand-colored Photographic Portraits of James V. and Mary Hopkinson Mansfield, ca. 1859.
$375
Portraits of the “spirit postmaster” James V. Mansfield, shown with his writing pen and paper, and his wife Mary Hopkinson Mansfield. Hand colored photographic prints on paper, reverse mounted on glass, circa 1859 (8″ x 6″ ovals on 8 1/2″ x 6 1/2″ glass). Possibly done from photographs of the couple’s 1847 wedding portraits. The portrait of James is signed and dated: Geo. Freeman, 1859.
George Freeman (1789-1868) was a well-known portrait painter who worked in both the United States and Britain. Freeman painted portraits of Martin Van Buren, Queen Victoria, and Prince Albert. The invention of photography put enormous pressure on the painters of miniature portraits. Many either became photographers or incorporated photography into their processes to quickly make a vividly real looking image. George Freeman was apparently among them.
About this Collection: The James V. Mansfield Papers
The William L. Clements Library had the unprecedented opportunity to acquire a large portion of the papers of James V. Mansfield (1817-1899), his wife Mary Hopkinson Mansfield (b. ca. 1827), and their children John Worthington Mansfield (1849-1933) and Mary Gertrude Mansfield (1854-1922). James Mansfield was born in 1817 in Massachusetts and worked as an itinerant penmanship teacher and a dry goods merchant in Boston before establishing himself as a spiritualist medium in 1857. James Mansfield’s services included delivering séances in person or acting as a writing medium. You were able to send to Mansfield a letter to a deceased family member or friend, and he would channel the departed, who would then respond to the unopened letter. Mansfield would return the reply and the original letter for a fee. For this service he gained the moniker “spirit postmaster,” and is now recognized as one of the founders of the American spiritualist movement, alongside Charles Foster and Henry Slade.