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Head of a Black Man
From the collection of Smithsonian American Art Museum. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
In the late nineteenth century, this palm-size paperweight with the profile of a Black man could be purchased through a mail order catalog, along with fancy ashtrays and other household objects (see image at right). It has ties to a historical European tradition of adorning household objects with dehumanizing depictions of servitude, from candlesticks to doorknobs, that reinforced a racial hierarchy.
Smithsonian American Art Museum’s own descriptionSubjects
Credit lineHead of a Black Man. copyrighted 1898. John Quincy Adams Ward, born Urbana, OH 1830-died New York City 1910. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Janis Conner and Joel Rosenkranz, New York. CC0.
