The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has reached an agreement with the known descendants of David Drake, an artist who was enslaved for the majority of his life, to restitute two of Drake’s large-scale works to them.
The MFA Boston acquired its first work by Drake, a “Poem Jar” from 1857, in 1997 and the second work, a “Signed Jar” also from 1857, in 2011. (The two works were made about a month apart.) Both of these works featured in the acclaimed exhibition “Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina,” which the MFA Boston co-organized with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where it debuted in 2022.
The two institutions had first engaged with Drake’s descendants as part of the research for the exhibition. In a press release announcing the restitution of the two works, the MFA Boston said that this process “prompted discussions around the rightful ownership of his works.” The museum likened its decision to resolve the ownership of the vessels to its history of doing so to restoring ownership of works to the heirs of their previous owners that were looted by the Nazis during World War II.
On October 16, the MFA Boston officially deaccessioned the two vessels and then transferred their ownership back to Drake’s descendants, via the Dave the Potter Legacy Trust. Through the agreement, the MFA Boston repurchased the “Poem Jar,” with the object officially reentering the collection on October 23. Drake’s descendants have retained ownership of the “Signed Jar,” but have agreed to a long-term loan with the museum. The “Poem Jar” is currently on view in the MFA Boston’s Art of the Americas Wing.
The provenance entry in the MFA Boston’s online collection catalog has also been updated to read, in part, “1857, created under conditions of slavery by Dave (later David Drake, b. about 1800 – d. about 1870) at the Stony Bluff Manufactory for Lewis J. Miles Pottery, and sold to benefit his enslaver, Lewis Miles (b. 1808 – d. 1868), Edgefield, SC. 1991, acquired by Tony L. Shank, Marion, SC.” The entry also includes a note stating, “Drake was not permitted to possess the jars and did not receive remuneration for them or exercise any control over their fate.”
“In achieving this resolution, the MFA recognizes that Drake was deprived of his creations involuntarily and without compensation,” the museum’s release reads. “This marks the first time that the Museum has resolved an ownership claim for works of art that were wrongfully taken under the conditions of slavery in the 19th-century U.S.”
Drake, who until recently was known simply as “Dave” or “Dave the Potter” in the historical record, was one of the stars of “Hear Me Now,” which highlighted that he is the earliest known enslaved potter to have inscribed his vessels, at a time when enslaved people knowing to read and write was illegal. He was born around 1800 and died around 1870; he adopted the surname of one of his owners after emancipation.
During the course of his career, Drake, who was based in the Edgefield District of South Carolina, at the time a center of pottery, made thousands of his vessels, of which some 720 survive today, according to the National Gallery of Art. The MFA Boston’s “Poem Jar” features an example of Drake’s wit, its inscription reading “I made this Jar for Cash- / though its called lucre trash.”
In a statement, MFA Boston director Pierre Terjanian said, “We are pleased to reach this landmark resolution with the family of David Drake. His works tell important stories. We acquired two jars by him to share his accomplishments as a talented artist, and to also call attention to the conditions of slavery under which he lived and worked. We are honored to be able to continue to share Drake’s creativity and story with our visitors and to preserve his legacy for future generations with support from his family.”
