RICHMOND, VA.- Visitors to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) can now see its newly acquired painting Portrait of Leana and the Lambeth Children on view in the museum’s American art galleries. Acquired by VMFA in December 2024, this remarkable painting will later be a centerpiece of the new American galleries in the museum’s forthcoming James W. and Frances Gibson McGlothlin Wing II, which is scheduled to open in 2028.

While the museum is privileged to boast a leading collection of American art, rarely does it acquire a work whose extraordinary orchestration of subject, history and provenance singularly elevates the department’s holdings.

“The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts strives to acquire significant works that build on the strengths of the museum’s permanent collection,” said Director and CEO Alex Nyerges. “This exceptional addition to our American art holdings sheds new light on slavery in the United States during the mid-19th century and reveals the compelling stories of its subjects nearly two centuries later.”

The painting portrays two daughters of William Meridith Lambeth Sr., Frances “Fanny” Bernard Lambeth and Medora “Dora” Lambeth. In profile at center is their brother, William Slacum Lambeth. William Lambeth Sr. owned several plantations in Louisiana, and the family resided on fashionable Carondelet Street in New Orleans.

Recent research by historian and genealogist Ja’el Gordon has identified the Black figure as an enslaved woman named Leana, who was purchased to be a nanny after the children’s mother died in childbirth. The discovery of Leana’s identity adds to the relevance of this painting. Further research is being conducted to learn more about Leana’s life, as well as the identity of the artist who painted this group portrait.

While Fanny and Dora fix their gaze on the viewer, Leana and the family dog, Bluche, both look intently at William. Five-year-old William died around the time this work was painted, and it is possible that this painting memorialized the boy’s recent death. The verdant nature, middle-ground sailboat, and ephemeral shadows all suggest transitory vanitas objects in what may well be a memento mori (remembrance of death) family portrait.

“Most important here, however,” noted Dr. Leo Mazow, VMFA’s Louise B. and J. Harwood Cochrane Curator of American Art, “is the discovery of Leana’s identity. The power of Leana’s identity reasserts personhood, which is brought into further relief by her naturalistic, empathetic depiction that renders it nearly tangible.”