Well, like so many I use Facebook. Also, like many I have many people on my "Friends" list. Recently I had a odd experience. I had a FB friend who I did not know. I wasn't sure how she got there. I noticed that her profile pic was this really cool portrait of a woman with a head scarf or turban* and a shawl. I wondered if this was a contemporary portrait of her do in the style of a early period or a antique portrait. It appeared to be 19th century in style. Maybe the work of an American Itinerant Painter! So rather than pepper her with a million questions at once I posted to ask her if she knew who had painter the picture. She responded a "nameless" painter. I was very excited to see was was then most likely the work of a Itinerant. I told her this. She then told me it was a picture of Marie Laveau and people said she looked like Marie. I knew that Laveau was was a practitioner of Voodoo in New Orleans. I right way searched for the painting on line to learn more about it. Plenty of info was found on Wikipedia.*
Laveau was born in 1782 and died in 1881. A very long life for anyone in the 19th century, never mind for a person of mixed race in the south. She and her daughter, Marie Laveau II, had a large multi-racial following. Still today visitors place marks on her alleged crypt for a voodoo wish.
But, the portrait has a interesting history. It is not a portrait by a "nameless" painter. It is attributed to none other that George Catlin, famed painter of the American West and Native people in the mid-1800's. But, this is not the painting! The portrait we have today is by Frank Schneider and was painter by him around 1920. It is "after" or copied from the original that is said to be by George Catlin. Apparently the original is lost. The copy belongs to the Louisiana State Museum. The painting I have posted is after Schneider's by a person called Smerdis Smerdis of Tlon , who posted it to Wikipedia and released it into the public domain. Schneider's version is copyrighted. When dealing with the copyrighted picture of a Voodoo priestess still respected by practitioners today, I try to play it safe.
However, I can find little information about the Catlin painting. They would of been contemporaries. It is easy to image that Catlin would have visited the Port of New Orleans on his trip in 1830 when he accompanied General William Clark on a diplomatic mission up the Mississippi River into Native American territory or on later trips into the American West. So, where does the information that the original was by Catlin. I have found not refrences to it in on-line Catlin websites. Why would a painting of a well know New Orleans figure done by a important American painting dispear. Is there proof it ever existed? Was Schneider working from a orignal that was only attributive to Catlin by local ledgend? Or, is it possible the exsistence of the orginal is only legend? Does anyone know more about this? I would love to learn more.
This is a strange tale, fitting for a portrait of a voodoo priestess. Strangely enough the young lady "disappeared" from my FB "friends list" after introducing me to this wonderful portrait.
I will post more if I find out anything . . . .
* (Apparently this is called a“tignon.” It was always very fancy, made of colorful material and considered a fashion accessory. She usually wore it with seven knotted points sitting up like a crown. This information is from a poster at Yahoo Answers)
**(Please don't tell my students I used Wikipedia. I often explain how it is not a scholarly or primary source, and can be very unreliable. But, for this it seem like a reasonable place to look.)
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