Little Ida

Charles Calverley

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In a 1908 interview Calverley recalled the subject of this naturalistic relief and the circumstances of its production. He met Ida at a summer hotel while she tended a boy whose portrait he was modeling, and noticed the "string of alabaster beads around her long neck, and large red ear-drops." Calverley included anecdotal touches in this portrait, including the curls of hair escaping from her knotted scarf, the unbuttoned collar, and the slight twist of the necklace. A prominent portraitist in Reconstruction-era New York, Calverley also produced likenesses of Abraham Lincoln and the radical abolitionist John Brown. In 1899 he revised Ida’s portrait to include the inscription "The Race John Brown Died For," a testament to Brown’s legacy.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art