The Last Moments of John Brown
Thomas Hovenden American, born Ireland
In 1859 John Brown, the controversial abolitionist, led a raid on a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), intending to arm enslaved African Americans. Brown had come to believe that the only way to end slavery in America was through bloodshed. Captured and convicted of treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, Brown was sentenced to die by hanging. His hasty trial electrified the nation, and a sensational newspaper account reported how he paused on his way to the scaffold to kiss a baby. At the request of a patron two decades later, Hovenden, also an abolitionist, made it the subject of this sympathetic work.
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![Banner image (from left): The Magnolia Vase, ca. 1893. Manufactured by Tiffany & Co. (1837–present). Designed by John T. Curran (1859–1933). American. Silver, gold, enamel, opals. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Mrs. Winthrop Atwill, 1899 (99.2). John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925). Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau), 1883–84. Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Arthur Hoppock Hearn Fund, 1916 (16.53). Thomas Hovenden (American [born Ireland], 1840–1895). The Last Moments of John Brown, 1882–84. Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Carl Stoeckel, 1897 (97.5)](https://www.metmuseum.org/-/media/images/blogs/metlivearts/2015/the-way-they-live/banner.jpg?sc_lang=en&hash=5EDC011A2645988EACFF956EB14EB38A)
