“The Old Plantation, SC” Oil on canvas 37 1/2 x 25 3/4 inch – by John Rose

Description

After the BLACK AMERICANA FOLK Art PAINTING The Old Plantation, South Carolina .  

Original Painting by John Rose ca. 1785-1790.

Now located in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum, Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia.

The original painting is described by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation as arguably the best-known depiction of slaves in America, which captures the efforts of enslaved people “to maintain African cultural traditions within the difficult, often hostile context of plantation life.” It is attributed to John Rose of Beaufort County, South Carolina. The scene probably took place on his plantation where, in the last decade of the eighteenth century, Rose enslaved between forty-nine and fifty-one people.

Purchased from a prestigious Richmond, Virginia estate: A collector of very fine art and china.

OIL ON CANVAS.

SIGNED as shown lower right. 

FRAMED Measurements: 37 1/2 x 25 3/4

Per Wikipedia:

The Old Plantation is an American folk art watercolor likely painted in the late 18th century on a South Carolina plantation. It is notable for its early date, its credible, non-stereotypical depiction of slaves on the North American mainland, and the fact that the slaves are shown pursuing their own interests. The artist has been identified as South Carolina slaveholder John Rose, and the painting may depict his plantation in what is now Beaufort County.

The painting depicts African American slaves between two small outbuildings of a plantation sited on a broad river. The Old Plantation is the only known painting of its era that depicts African Americans by themselves, concerned only with each other, though its central activity remains obscure. Some writers have speculated that the painting depicts a marriage ceremony, with the attendant tradition of jumping the broom. However, scholars have suggested that the subjects are performing a secular dance: western African dance patterns traditionally include sticks and a variety of body positions. The headdresses pictured are of West African origin.

The painting features two male musicians, one of whom is playing a stringed instrument that resembles a Yoruba molo; the body of this instrument seems to be a hollow gourd. The molo is a precursor to the banjo, and this is the earliest known American painting to picture a banjo-like instrument. The second musician is playing a percussion instrument that resembles a Yoruba gudugudu. Most likely, he is playing an upended gourd with sticks. The two women hold what look like scarves, but are actually sheguras, rattles made of a gourd enclosed in a net of variable length into which hard objects have been woven.

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