Rare portraits of enslaved Mississippians displayed together at Mississippi Museum of Art

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — With powerfully haunting eyes and an enigmatic expression, “Portrait of Frederick,” an enslaved man painted circa 1840, stares out at visitors of the Mississippi Museum of Art.

A little further into the museum is Delia, a Black woman dressed in red and wearing a headscarf who bears a similarly unknowable expression. The pair of portraits are the only known preemancipation paintings of enslaved people in Mississippi.