Memorial Artwork

Visual Work of Art

Enslaver

Meredith, Georgia

Painted Portrait of Georgia Meredith

Georgia Meredith was the wife of the namesake for Meredith College, Thomas Meredith. She was originally a Sears from Edenton. Her stepfather owned a large plantation, and Georgia was very involved in the Baptist church. During the antebellum era, Thomas and Georgia enslaved as many as eight people, who could have been brought into the marriage by Georgia as a gift from her stepfather. After her husband's death, Georgia became the publisher for Thomas' newspaper, The Biblical Recorder, from 1850 until she moved to Georgia sometime before August 13, 1860. The Portrait of Georgia Meredith hangs in the Julia Hamlet Harris Rare Book Room of Meredith College's Carlyle Campbell Library next to a portrait of her husband, Thomas Meredith. Oral tradition suggests the portraits were painted in Philadelphia between the years 1820-1830 by an unidentified artist. The painting is made from oil paints on a canvas, sitting in a large gold frame not original to the piece. In 2005 the painting was examined for restoration, and by May 6, 2009, the treatment was completed.

The painting is (27 1/4") by (22 1/2") in a gold-colored frame not original to the painting. The medium is oil on linen canvas. The portrait is part of a pair, the other portrait being of Georgia's husband, Thomas Meredith. The portrait’s composition is typical of the time it is believed to have been created. The painting has a dark background with no discernable features and a bright, well-lit central figure in period clothing in the center turned slightly to the side.

1820

May 6, 2005

1820-1865: Slavery, Anti-Slavery, and Civil War

Donated to Meredith College in 1966 by Claude and St. John Ralls, sons of Ada Tolson Ralls, a granddaughter of Thomas Meredith.

Meredith College; Raleigh, North Carolina

NCPedia

Letter from W. T. B. Baltimore

A History of Meredith College By Mary Lynch Johnson

Biblical Recorder

Painted Portrait of Thomas Meredith

Meredith, Thomas

Altered - Restored

September 28, 1804

April 21, 1872