Early voting is underway in the New Orleans mayor's race primary. For the next two weeks on Louisiana Considered, we'll be bringing you interviews with the top three candidates. 

Up first, The Times-Picayune/Editorial director and columnist Stephanie Grace spoke with city councilmember Oliver Thomas. He discussed his long political career, successes and failures of previous administrations and what he's learned from his time in prison 15 years ago after pleading guilty to bribery charges.

In 1837, the children of Frédéric Frey, a German-born New Orleans merchant and financier, sat down for a portrait with French portrait painter Jacques Amans. Curiously, an enslaved Afro-Creole teenager named Bélizaire was included.

However, for roughly a century of the painting’s history, Bélizaire wasn’t there. He’d been painted over, removed from the Frey family portrait. And only recently, that modification was removed to restore Bélizaire to the painting. Now, this piece of Louisiana history is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Baton Rouge-based art and antique collector Jeremy Simien tells us more about the complex history of the nearly 200-year-old painting.

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Today’s episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Adam Vos. Our managing producer is Alana Schreiber. We get production support from Garrett Pittman and our assistant producer Aubry Procell.

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