Mississippi Museum of Art displays rare portraits of enslaved people

With powerfully haunting eyes and an enigmatic expression, “Portrait of Frederick,” an image of 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 pre-emancipation paintings of enslaved people in Mississippi.Now, for the first time, they are on display together fo