AFA 18th Anniversary

Antiques & Fine Art 185 2018 what is believed to be the earliest signed and dated poem piece produced by the enslaved artisan, David Drake (ca. 1800–ca. 1870s). Popularly known as “Dave the Potter” (Fig. 1), Drake was acquired by Harvey Drake (ca. 1796–1832) when he was approximately 15 years old, about the time Harvey Drake partnered with his uncle Dr. Abner Landrum in the Pottersville Stoneware Manufactory. By 1840, when David Drake turned this jug, Harvey Drake had died, and Dave was working for Landrum’s son-in-law, Lewis Miles, at his pottery on Big Horse Creek in the Edgefield District of South Carolina. The training of enslaved African Americans as potters was a distinctly southern development conditioned by plantation demographics and the need for large-scale utilitarian wares suited to food and liquid storage. But Drake’s pots signal another advantage of pottery work: a surface receptive to inscription. While VMFA’s jug is detailed with a verse that passively alludes to the plantation’s tannery industry— “Ladys & gentlemens Shoes/Sell all you can & nothing you’ll loose!” the physical incising of Dave’s name on the clay surface, in partnership with that of his owner, points to very different intentions, including a blatant disregard of South Carolina’s strict slave anti-literacy laws, an action that raises questions not only about Dave’s place and degree of autonomy within the Edgefield community, but his relationship with his owner, Lewis Miles, who might have been punished for permitting such a display. Moreover, the authored couplets bring to mind the kind of everyday wisdoms found in popular works like Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack (1739), a style of couplet that may have been inspired by the poetry Dave knew from his exposure to The Hive , a newspaper published by Dave’s one-time owner, Dr. Abner Landrum. Drake appears to have been armored with an extralegal Teflon shield likely merited by his extraordinary talents. His fame among his contemporaries, black and white, enslaved and free, suggests his probable acquaintance with another potter of scholarly interest: the maker of VMFA’s recently acquired face cup (Fig. 2). Though the origin and meaning of face wares is still speculative, African American variations have been interpreted as a f usion of European and A frican wa res, notably the anthropomorphic wooden power figures called nkisi used by Kongo people as mediums for receiving or activating the help of otherworldly spirits. Those dating before Emancipation are