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View: 3/4 portrait

Pitcher

about 1840
Object Place: Medford, Massachusetts

Medium/Technique Earthenware with dark brown Albany slip glaze
Dimensions Overall: 25.7 x 25.4 x 66 cm (10 1/8 x 10 x 26 in.)
Credit Line Heritage Fund for a Diverse Collection, Gallery Instructor 50th Anniversary Fund to support The Heritage Fund for a Diverse Collection, John H. and Ernestine A. Payne Fund, and partial gift of Susan and James Witkowski
Accession Number2016.532
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsAmericas
ClassificationsCeramicsPotteryEarthenware

Made at an unknown pottery in Medford, Massachusetts, around 1840, this pitcher is still being studied and provokes challenging conversations. It has been thought to be a posthumous depiction of Toussaint L'Ouverture, the former slave who led the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804), the first successful war for independence by enslaved people in the Americas. Although L’Ouverture never sat for a portrait in his own lifetime, widely circulated prints mythologized him alternatively as a powerful hero and a ruthless war lord. The vessel’s exaggerated facial features derive from stereotypical images of black people in early 19th-century popular culture.

ProvenanceBy 2000, collection of Tony and Marie Shank, Marion, South Carolina; December 2000, sold by the Shanks to James P. and Susan C. Witkowski, Camden, South Carolina; November 2016, sold by the Witkowskis to the MFA. (Accession date: November 9, 2016)