African Americana

Ninth plate ambrotype. Housed in a papier mâché case with mother of pearl and hand painting. (Image with some crackling and loss to emulsion over male subject’s face, some spotting along right edge, very minor spots of image loss to baby’s dress; case with general wear including surface cracking and some separation to spine.) Portrait features a white baby in a polka-dot dress  seated in a folding stool, in what appears to be a window opening, with a large ceramic vessel leaning in to the scene at the lower left.

The ceramic vessel is notable since it is clearly an example of Colonoware, a type of pottery known to have been manufactured by enslaved Africans along the Atlantic coast of America.  While Colonoware was made from Virginia to Florida, most was made on South Carolina plantations.  Sadly, the sitters in the image are not identified, and thus it is not possible to pinpoint where the photograph was taken.  Clearly, the pot was meant to be part of the tableau and begs the question: is the African American man in the portrait a potter?  

A rare, and probably unique image.