FRANKFORT — What is believed to be the only existing pair of mid-19th-century portraits of freed African-Americans has returned to public view.

        The newly restored, 160-year-old oil paintings of Dennis and Diademia Doram of Danville, Ky., were unveiled Friday at the Kentucky Historical Society.

        There are plenty of individual portraits of freed African-American slaves, including the well-known portrait of Frederick Douglass, but this is the only known pair of a couple.

        “I don't know of another portrait pair of mid-19th century freed African-Americans anywhere in the U.S.,” said Nancy Glaser, museum division manager of the Kentucky Historical Society. “That's one of the things that makes this extremely unique and a true find for the commonwealth.”

        Married in 1830 — just three years after Mr. Doram had been freed in his owner's will and decades after Diademia Taylor was purchased by her father, a free African-American — the couple had 12 children.

        Through Mr. Doram's successful business ventures, the two amassed thousands of dollars and acquired hundreds of acres in and near Danville, something that was virtually unheard of among African-Americans of their era, Ms. Glaser said.

        This month, the portraits will be exhibited in the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame/Kentucky Farm Bureau Insurance Case as part of a special exhibit for Black History Month. After that, they will be placed in the antebellum area of “A Kentucky Journey.”

        Viola Gross of Frankfort, the 80-year-old great-granddaughter of the couple, was among those witnessing the unveiling of the historic portraits Friday.

        “The portraits are beautiful,” Mrs. Gross said. “I'm excited that they're on display again.”

        Mrs. Gross learned of the portraits' existence while researching her family tree. She couldn't afford to buy them, but she contacted a staff member at the Kentucky Historical Society, who helped negotiate their purchase from a Danville antiques dealer.

        “The dealer wanted a lot more than we could afford, so it took us a few years to negotiate the purchase,” Ms. Glaser said.

        The portraits were finished by well-known Kentucky artist Patrick Henry Davenport in 1839, but were later stashed in a Boyle County farm, Ms. Glaser said. When found more than a century later, the images were in “very poor condition,” she said.

        After the Kentucky Historical Society purchased the paintings, it sent them to an art conservation center in Oberlin, Ohio, for a six-month restoration that cost $15,000.

        “The difference between how they arrived and how they look now is dramatic,” Ms. Glaser said. “The conservator did an amazing job.”
       

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