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A drawing of a couple in a boat with the figure to the right playing a banjo as the left figure rows. Set against a moonlit background.
  • A drawing of a couple in a boat with the figure to the right playing a banjo as the left figure rows. Set against a moonlit background.

George W. Brenneman

Lovers in Rowboat
Now On View

Maker

George W. Brenneman (American, 1856-1906)

Title

Lovers in Rowboat
Illustration to My Darling Nelly Gray

Year

1892

Medium

  • Pen and brush and ink over graphite on illustration board

Materials/Techniques

Techniques

  • Pen and brush and ink over graphite on illustration board

Materials

ink, graphite

Supports

  • Bristol board

Dimensions

38.1 x 29.2 cm (15 x 11 1/2 inches)

Credit / Object Number

Credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Chase

Object Number

81.255.5

Type

  • Drawings and Watercolors

Exhibition History

Process Work
Intersections of Photography and Print ca. 1825 to Today
Feb 01, 2025 – Jul 20, 2025

Label copy

This wash drawing by George Brenneman refers to the song “My Darling Nelly Gray” by the abolitionist pastor Benjamin Hanby. First published in 1857, the song tells the story of two lovers forced apart by enslavement. Popular among white anti-slavery activists in the years leading up to the Civil War, the song was likely never intended for Black audiences. Brenneman’s illustrations are likewise drawn from a white person’s perspective. Later recordings of the song by Black musicians including Louis Armstrong point to its evolving legacy. 

Landscape and Leisure
19th-Century American Drawings from the Collection
Mar 13, 2015 – Jul 19, 2015

Label copy

These atmospheric wash drawings by George Brenneman accompanied the song My Darling Nelly Gray, written more than 30 years earlier by Benjamin Hanby, a pastor and abolitionist in Ohio. Published in 1857, the song became popular among Union troops. It was based on the writer’s experience as a boy, when his parents hid a runaway slave named Joseph Selby in their home. Selby died soon after arriving, but told the story of his sweetheart, Nelly Gray, who had been sold away from their Kentucky plantation to Georgia. Stricken with grief, Selby ran away and was headed to Canada to earn money to buy Nelly Gray’s freedom when he died.

Brenneman’s appropriately sentimental vignettes were published along with a number of other illustrated songs in 1892, in a book titled Favorite Folk Ballads. The book was a nostalgic compilation of popular favorites from the past.

Image use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use.

Public Domain This object is in the Public Domain and available under a CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication

Tombstone

George W. Brenneman (American, 1856-1906)
Lovers in Rowboat; Illustration to My Darling Nelly Gray, 1892
Pen and brush and ink over graphite on illustration board
38.1 x 29.2 cm (15 x 11 1/2 inches)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Chase 81.255.5

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Feedback

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