Three Jacksonian-era Portraits of Black Men

…William Matthew Prior’s rendering of the Philadelphia businessman William Whipper is less one-dimensional and as psychologically layered as Forten’s, Hanson’s, and Howland’s portraits. Along with tastefully dressing in a gentleman’s proper attire, Whipper wears a Masonic gold chain and key on his waistcoat, gold rings on both hands, and a squarish black pin on his shirtfront. Holding a bound copy of one of his self-published pamphlets concerning temperance or the abolition of slavery… Whipper has neither the ostentatiousness of the two vernacular portraits nor the élan of Hanson’s and Howland’s portrayals. Instead, Prior fused sartorial chic with sobriety and a sympathetic activism… Whipper’s wardrobe signals his possession of an aesthetic yet apropos sense of self that, along with his professional duties and mission as a “moral reformer,” communicates a conspicuous social position…, especially in the face of the racial discrimination and outright hostility toward that beleaguered community.