• Was a was an American painter of African ancestry.
• Prince Demah Barnes who was formerly enslaved and active in Boston in the late 1700s.
• According to The Metropolitan Museum of Art Demah is "the only known enslaved artist working in colonial America whose paintings have survived."
• Demah's mother was an enslaved woman named Daphney.
• Both he and his mother were baptised at Trinity Church, Boston in 1745.
• Demah's purchase by Henry Barnes was recorded in November 1769.
• Barnes stated that he purchased Demah with the intention of "improving his genius in painting".
• In October 1770 Barnes took Demah with him on a trip to London.
• In February the following year Barnes recorded that Demah was receiving lessons from "Mr. Pine who has taken him purely for his genius".
• It is thought that this was the British portrait painter Robert Edge Pine, who was working in London at the time and later settled in Philadelphia.
• There are three known surviving portraits by Demah.
• The artist signed William Duguid's portrait "Prince Demah Barnes" and dated it 1773.
• The Barneses were loyalists and fled to England in 1775 after a series of threatening incidents, including the tarring and feathering of Henry Barnes's horse.
• Demah remained in Boston.
• In April 1777, at the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, Demah enlisted in the Massachusetts militia as a free man.
• The enlistment records show he identified himself as only "Prince Demah", discarding the name of his former owner.
• Demah died of an unknown illness, likely smallpox, the following year.
• On March 11, 1778, he wrote his will, which he signed as "Prince Demah of Boston...a limner" and a "free Negro."
• Demah bequeathed his estate to his "Loving Mother Daphne Demah".
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