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A light-skinned man, woman, boy, and girl, and a brown-skinned man sit and stand around a table spread with papers and a map in this horizontal portrait. The light-skinned man sits on a red upholstered chair at the table to our left, and his body faces our right in profile. His legs are crossed, and he rests his right elbow, closer to us, on the back of the chair. He has a sloping, rounded nose, dark eyes, jowls along his jawline, and his closed mouth juts forward. His left arm rests on an open pamphlet on the table next to a sword with a delicate silver hilt. To our left, the young boy stands also looks to our right in profile, next to the older man's chair. The boy wears a dusky rose-pink suit with a white lacy collar. With his right hand, he pulls back a dark green cloth covering a globe on a wooden stand along the left edge of the canvas. The woman sits at the right side of the table, across from the man. She has dark eyes, full cheeks, a double chin, and her pale lips are closed. She wears a voluminous ivory satin gown and petticoat with a black lace shawl, and an ivory cap with a satin bow covers her gray hair. She points to a spot on a map on the table with a closed fan held in her right hand. The young girl, wearing a gauzy white dress with a pine-green sash at the waist, stands on the far side of the table near the woman, holding the curling edges of the map. Behind the women, the brown-skinned man wears a rust-orange and gray uniform, and stands with one hand tucked into his vest in the shadows at the edge of the composition. His features are indistinct but he faces our left in profile. The room has a gold-and-yellow checkerboard floor, and a red cloth drapes from columns frame the scene to each side. It is unclear whether a river view at the back of the room is seen through an open window or door, or if it is a large painting behind the people.

Edward Savage, The Washington Family, 1789-1796, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1940.1.2

II. The Measure of Freedom and Slavery

America’s Architecture of Freedom and Unfreedom

A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts

  • Sunday, March 16, 2025
  • 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
  • East Building Auditorium
  • Talks
  • Hybrid
  • Registration Required
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This is the second of four lectures in America’s Architecture of Freedom and Unfreedom, the 74th A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts presented by Mabel O. Wilson of Columbia University.

This talk follows Andrew Ellicott, a mathematician and surveyor, and his team including free Black surveyor Benjamin Banneker, on their 1791 survey of the boundaries for the new Federal Territory between Virginia and Maryland. If the new territory and its yet to be planned capital, Washington City, functioned as an architectural symbol of unity between the 13 states and their commitment to uphold and protect the tenets of liberty through self-governance, then how did Banneker’s presence on the surveying team represent divergent beliefs around the natural rights of humans, especially the right to freedom?

The series continues on:
Sunday, March 23, 2:00 p.m.
Sunday, March 30, 2:00 p.m.

Sign language interpreters are available for this program. Please call 202.737.4215 or email [email protected] two weeks in advance for a request. Learn more about accessibility services.