The Sedgeford Hall Portrait U


ntil very recently, this famous painting was believed to represent a portrait drawn from life of Pocahontas and her son, Thomas Rolfe. It is


known as the Sedgeford Hall portrait, after a Rolfe family estate in Norfolk, England. Although little was known about its origins,


it was generally accepted that Thomas Rolfe, who was raised by relatives in England, had brought it along with him when he decided to settle in Virginia to assume his father’s lands and possessions. After supposedly hanging on the wall of a southern colonial mansion for years, the portrait would have been eventually shipped back to England and kept in one of the Rolfe family’s many estates. Years later, a direct descendant, Eustache


Neville Rolfe (1845-1908), of Heacham Hall, purchased this painting from a certain Mrs. Charlton, believing it to be a faithful portrait of his ancestors. After having been displayed at Heacham Hall for many years, the canvas found shelter inside the King’s Lynn Town Hall near Norfolk, hanging above the staircase lead- ing to the Mayor’s parlor. Many historians unflinchingly concluded that the earrings worn by the painted lady were the exact replica of Pocahontas’ famous earrings, the only personal belongings of Pow- hatan’s daughter to have survived to these days. But once art experts, after close examina-


tion, attributed the painting to an unknown artist of the “American School, circa 1800,” the portrait couldn’t possibly have been contemporary with Pocahontas, and the mystery deepened. The solution to this enigma reposed quietly


for more than 160 years on page 59 of the Janu- ary 29, 1848 edition of the Illustrated London News, a popular Victorian magazine. It was discovered by Bill Ryan, a researcher working on a book about the Seminole Indians. While flipping through the pages of the magazine, he instantly recognized the familiar illustration: a black-and-white drawn version of the King Lynn’s portrait. If the similarities were undeni- able, this portrait was described in the maga- zine, not as Pocahontas and Thomas Rolfe, but as “the wife and child of Osceola, the last of the Seminole Indian Chiefs.”


Portrait once thought to be of Pocahontas and son and sold to her descendants has recently been identi- fied as 1830s portrait of Pe-o-ka, wife of Seminole warrior Osceola, and their son.


Osceola, the Black Drink, A Warrior of Great Distinction, 1838, by George Catlin. Osceola (ca. 1804 -1838). Oil on canvas. 30.88” x 25.88”, 1838. Object 1985.66.301. Smithsonian American Art Museum, gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr.


38 AMERICAN INDIAN SUMMER 2013


PHOTO COURTESY OF SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM


COURTESY KINGS LYNN TOWN HALL, NORFOLK, U.K.


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