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Mickalene Thomas designed “Portrait of An Unlikely Space,” envisioning a setting for a precious painting of a freedwoman with a mysterious history.

Now, a piece of Mason’s legacy — the oldest known artistic representation of the famous freedwoman — faces demolition.

The man had recently taken to wife a freedwoman who had been the noble’s bedwarmer before the city fell.

Some measure of the situation may be taken from what befell when the freedwoman Claudia Acte became the mistress of Nero.

And, along with his two nurses, the despised freedwoman guarded his remains and laid the last of his line beside his ancestors.