File:1837 Amans (art).jpg

Jacques Amans. The Frey children and Belizaire (1837). New York: Metropolitan Museum.

The painting portrays the children of the Frey family with Bélizaire, an enslaved fifteen-year-old boy. The work is attributed to Jacques Guillaume Lucien Amans, a French painter residing in New Orleans. Elizabeth, Léontine, and Frederick Jr. are pictured in their garden and looking at the artist, while Bélizaire stands above them, looking away deep in thought with his arms crossed.

The depiction of the boy, shown in an individualistic and realistic way, along with the children of the family is very rare. Indeed, the figure of Bélizaire was painted over, possibly during the late 19th century or around 1900, during a period of renewed racial violence in the United States.

Bélizaire and his mother, Sally, were acquired by the Freys in 1828. Sally was probably the house cook, and Bélizaire also worked at home ... Soon after the portrait was painted, the three Frey children had died. The family had encountered massive debt and sold Bélizaire in 1857. He went to work on a large sugar plantation in Louisiana, the Evergreen Plantation.