Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, October 26, 1993                   TAG: 9310260261
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG ART PURCHASE IS A PIECE OF HISTORY - AND MYSTERY

On one side of the canvas is a bust of what looks like a respectable New England gentleman. The other side shows a white man kissing a black woman next to a white man beating a black man with a stick.

A label underneath the slavery side of the canvas reads "Virginian Luxuries."

The meaning is unclear. It could be a criticism of slavery painted by an abolitionist or a straightforward depiction of slavery, said Robert Watson, director of Colonial Williamsburg's African-American department.

"I've been trying to look at it from all sides, and I haven't come to any conclusion," he said.

The costumes suggest the painting was done about 1825.

"The social historians I've talked to are very excited about the piece because the depictions of it don't exist very widely," said Barbara Luck, curator at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center at Colonial Williamsburg. "This is confirmation of a situation we know existed."

"The first time I saw it, I couldn't believe it - that someone had drawn that image, had gone that far," Watson said. "But I was pleased that they had. It's a wonderful find. It's something you can see that you've always read about."

The foundation will not say what it paid for the painting. It was acquired from a Richmond antiques dealer who in turn received it from an unidentified woman whose father owned it in Connecticut.

The white pine of the frame and the style of the bust-length portrait suggest a New England origin, Luck said.

But the experts don't know if the painting is abolitionist, if the kissing man and violent man are meant to be the same person, and whether the two sides of the canvas are related.

"It raises more questions than answers," Luck said. "It's going to be impossible to tell even which side was painted first."

Colonial Williamsburg is having the painting repaired because the brittle canvas was punctured in several places. It probably will not go on display until 1994, and when it does it will likely go in a glass case, Luck said.

"To understand it, people will need to see it as a two-sided thing," she said. "It will probably shock some people and outrage some people. We're certainly not trying to do that. We're trying to enlighten an understanding of the past."