Object Notes

This small portrait of a fashionable Creole gentleman is attributed to Julien Hudson, one of the earliest documented free artists of color working in New Orleans. In the 19th century, a sizable prosperous community of free people of color flourished in the city, and many of them worked as artists and craftspeople or ran successful businesses.

Benzaiten, or Benten, as the goddess is also called in Japan, is a Japanese Buddhist version of Sarasvati, the Hindu goddess of music, poetry, learning, and the performing arts. Sarasvati was first adopted in China and then passed to Japan in the 7th-8th century.