Enslaved Girl
Arlington, Virginia
By Mary Anna Randolph Custis Lee (1808-1873)
Watercolor on Paper, 5 3/4 x 4 inches
Signed and dated lower right, “M A R Custis 1830” and later inscribed “Topsy”
J.E.B. Stuart Collection
“Enslaved Girl”, painted in 1830 by Mrs. Robert E. Lee, depicts a young slave of Arlington Plantation, the land once owned by George and Martha Washington and now Arlington National Cemetery. This iconic image so beautifully rendered was later named by the artist “Topsy” in honor of Harriet Beecher’s Stowe’s determined character from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the most popular and influential novel of the 19th Century.
Mary Anna Custis Lee, daughter of the only grandson of President George Washington painted “Enslaved Girl” the year before she wed General Robert E. Lee who was to be the commander and chief of the Confederate States of America. Mrs. Lee renamed and gave this symbol of the South to fellow Virginian J.E.B. Stuart while he attended The United States Military Academy at West Point where her husband served as Commandant from 1852 until 1855. J.E.B. Stuart went on to be immortalized as the most audacious and skilled cavalry officer of the Civil War and was killed defending Richmond, Virginia in 1864. The watercolor was recently discovered amongst his collection of West Point autographs and watercolors.
The monumental weight carried by this delicate watercolor is exemplified by its subject of the American slave, embodied in its artist who was a Southern abolitionist of American aristocracy, described by its bequest to a brazen Confederate General and monumentalized by the history that continues to define our country. “Enslaved Girl” stands as a symbol of the Civil War reminding us of America’s most essential rite of passage. Her bare feet stand firmly guarding the memorial to those soldiers and Presidents who now rest beneath.
