Why it matters
Three formerly enslaved Black women face their old white mistress, dressed in widow's black. Homer's scene of Reconstruction-era Virginia has been called an 'invaluable record' of the time.
Did you know?
- It was painted in 1876.
- Homer had served in Virginia as a war correspondent.
- The composition echoes his earlier Prisoners from the Front.
Based on the Wikipedia article A Visit from the Old Mistress (CC BY-SA 4.0).
