Featured Exhibit
Elizabeth Tailer Nelson (1668–1734), ca. 1685. Unknown artist, probably American; oil on canvas. Gift of Elsie Wilson Thompson and Orme Wilson III in memory of Alice Borland Wilson. 2020.5.2.
Elizabeth Tailer Nelson (1667–1734)
Elizabeth Tailer Nelson came from a family of influential Bostonians. A local artist probably painted her portrait around 1685 when she married John Nelson. Elizabeth’s luxurious dress made of European silk and lace, jewelry beset with pearls—likely fished from the Caribbean by enslaved laborers—and pet squirrel on a gold chain reflect the family’s wealth and connection to an international marketplace that profited off the labor and trade of enslaved individuals. By the 1680s, the enslavement of Black and Indigenous people was prevalent in Boston. Brief references to the people the Nelsons enslaved survive in historic records: Penny was a maid, Sam was accused of theft, and Will, Jack, Boston, London, and Corridon probably slept on the pallets in the kitchen described as "negro beds" in an inventory of their estate.
