The Bannister portrait of Robert Gould Shaw was one of several reclamations of Gould Shaw by members of Boston's African American artistic community such as Edmonia Lewis, despite Gould Shaw's Boston Brahmin background. It was displayed with the label ""Our" Martyr". The portrait was praised in the "New York Weekly Anglo-African" as "a fine specimen of art" and inspired a poem by Martha Perry Lowe entitled "The Picture of Col. Shaw in Boston." The portrait's paternalistic praise from Lowe and Lydia Maria Child exemplified the divide between Boston's white abolitionists and the African American community. The painting was purchased by the state of Massachusetts and installed in its state house, but its current location is unknown.