Images(2)

Melrose Complex #1

Dateca. 1955

Artist Clementine Hunter (1885-1988)

OriginAmerica, Louisiana, Melrose

MediumOil on card

DimensionsFramed: 23 7/8 × 23 5/8in.

Credit LineMuseum Purchase, The Friends of Colonial Williamsburg Collections

Object number2025.101.1

DescriptionA painted scene depicting 4 white buildings with brown roofs set among vignettes of scenes from plantation life such as laundry drying on a clothesline, two women picking cotton and a third woman carrying a basket filled with produce on her head.Label TextClementine Hunter often recorded scenes from her life on and around Melrose Plantation, where she lived and worked for most of her life. This piece depicts several of the buildings from the estate as well as tasks that Hunter was involved in, such as harvesting crops and doing laundry.

Of particular importance to Hunter’s story is the African House pictured at the top of her painting. The African House was built around 1815, and while it’s original uses have been debated, in the summer of 1955 Hunter spent seven weeks painting autobiographical murals around the entire second floor. The buildings featured in her murals are also found in this work, including the sundial, depicted in the upper left corner here. This armillary sphere is seen in many of Hunter’s Melrose paintings and was supposedly how Hunter learned to tell time.
ProvenanceDate unknown, Dr. Mildred Hart Bailey [1926-1995] (Natchitoches, Louisiana); 1989, purchased by William Louis-Dreyfus [1932-2016] (Mount Kisco, New York); 2016, gifted to The William Louis-Dreyfus Foundation (Mount Kisco, New York); 2025, sold by Christie’s Auction [January 22, 2025, lot 3] (New York, New York); 2025, purchased by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, VA)