John Brown – Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.

This portrait of famed abolitionist John Brown was painted in 1872 by Ole Peter Hansen Balling. It depicts Brown in captivity following his unsuccessful raid of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) in 1859 aimed at starting an armed slave revolt. Brown’s raid and his subsequent execution provided one of the main sparks that ignited the Civil War 16 months later.