‘Portraiture and Identity in the British Colonial World’ at the Milwaukee Museum of Art

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Image via Milwaukee Art Museum

A Portrait of Her

“A Very Strong Likeness of Her: Portraiture and Identity in the British Colonial World” at the Milwaukee Art Museum is a tiny little show with a lot to say. The small gallery tucked away on the third floor of the museum, despite its relative lack of grand objects, ends up being a dense little box from which to unpack a single, particular and very gripping story about colonialism and social evolution in the British empire. And more importantly, to where all of it led.

That story revolves around a seemingly unremarkable, albeit gorgeous portrait painting of one Miss Francis “Fanny” Lee by the British portrait painter Francis Cotes in 1769. The oil-on-canvas likeness of the juvenile girl reflects late 18th century examples more familiar exponents of the Grand Manner like Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. Though charming enough, the titular work doesn’t rise to that level of technical virtuosity. But that’s not of great concern for the purposes of the show.

What is important is the back story of the painting. The work was acquired by the museum in 1964, but in 2012 a descendent of the Lee family came forward with a cache of personal letters providing a great deal of further context. That context amounts to thrilling saga about the birth of modern global trade, social history, and more indirectly, the mission of museums as we move further away from masterpiece-centric understanding of the role of art institutions.

We discover that Fanny’s portrait was commissioned by her uncle Joseph while she was at boarding school in London. Her immediate family, meanwhile, was in Jamaica where Fanny was born a few years earlier. Her father Robert Cooper Lee was in the Caribbean building a successful enterprise in the burgeoning sugar industry. While there he fathered three children with Pricilla Kelly, a free woman of color, whom he married years later when they eventually settled very successfully in London.

Family Complications

Once the supplemental texts and letters from the family are absorbed, the portrait of Fanny becomes ever more complicated. To know that she’s bi-racial begs one to consider the manner and ambitions of the painting itself. She’s depicted by Cotes as lily white and genteel in the style of traditional aristocratic portraiture of the time. We learn that baptism records in Jamaica recognize Fanny as a “Quadroon,” noting her black ancestry. We learn that eventually the family returned to London and the couple married, and that Robert petitioned to have his wife and children designated as the legal inheritors of the estate.

The show unfurls visual information as a visual case-study-slash-mystery. It supplements detailed accounts of the Lee family and their letters with artifacts relating to the role of sugar, colonialism, slavery, and social evolution in the Kingdom. It’s a thrilling conceit that begins around a very unassuming portrait of a girl comes and eventually comes full circle. Once it does one can’t look at Fanny the same way again.

The quote the show hinges on, “a very strong likeness,” is pulled from Joseph’s letters to Robert. As we gather that full story, piece-by-piece, the phrase takes on more meaning. Was it an innocent account, aspirational, defensive, or a simply polite? Which then begs one to consider what a likeness is anyway? Late 18th century portraits were a long way from being naturalistic. Such portraits were a way to tell a fabricated story of social maintenance. Fanny holds a handkerchief rabbit in a theatrical pose against a riveted chair and velvet parlor curtain in grand style. It’s so far from a selfie that one’s mind must boggle. The exhibition provides so many juicy circumstantial chestnuts behind that 11-year-old sitter, but it mostly allows us the audience to infer what they all might mean culturally, socially, and historically. A small show, indeed, but with a lot to tell us about from where it all came, and probably, where it’s going.  

Openings

July 30–August 5, 2023

Milwaukee Art Museum

Lakeside at MAM

Sunday, July 30, 11 a.m.–4 p.m.

Villa Terrace Decorative Art Museum

Hammered Flower Art Workshop

Sunday, July 30, 12–2 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

Drop-In Tour: Architecture and Collection Highlights

Sunday, July 30, 2–3 p.m.

Menomonee Park

Art in the Park

Sunday, July 30, p.m.

Washington Park

Community Arts and Funk Festival

Wednesday, August 2, 6–10 p.m.

Saint Kate-The Arts Hotel

Jaymee Harvey Wilms Artist Talk

Thursday, August 3, 6–7:30 p.m.

Jewish Museum Milwaukee

Perfectly Marvelous: A Night at the Cabaret Fundraiser

Thursday, August 3, 6:30–9:30 p.m.

MARN (Milwaukee Artist Resource Network)

Genisx Mental Health Mixer - 'The New Normal'

Thursday, Aug 3, 6–8 p.m.

Museum of Wisconsin Art (MOWA)

Tour: “The Street” Exhibition

Friday, August 4, 11 a.m.–12 p.m.

Gallery 2622

Opening Reception for Fred Bell, “Sanctuary Woods”

Friday, August 4, 6–9 p.m.

Museum of Wisconsin Art (MOWA)

TEN Talk with Artist Jason Yi

Saturday, August 5, 11 a.m.

Wauwatosa Historical Society

Firefly Art Fair

Saturday, August 5, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

Wisconisn Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts

Guided Tour & Chiku Chiku Kaya Bag Workshop

Saturday, August 5, 9 a.m.–12 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

Drop-In Art Making: Kohl’s Art Studio

Saturday, August 5, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.

The Deer District

Milwaukee Makers Market

Saturday, August 5, 10 a.m.–3 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

Story Time in the Galleries

Saturday, August 5, 10:30–11:30 a.m.

Maier Festival Park

Black Arts Fest, MKE

Saturday, August 5, 12–10 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

Drop-In Tour: Architecture and Collection Highlights

Saturday, August 5, 2–3 p.m.