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Print - Master James Crow
  • Master James Crow
    William Henry Hunt, born 1790 - died 1864
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Master James Crow

  • Object:

    Print

  • Place of origin:

    London, England (printed and published)

  • Date:

    1840 (printed and published)

  • Artist/Maker:

    William Henry Hunt, born 1790 - died 1864 (artist)
    Fairland, Thomas, born 1804 - died 1852 (lithographer)

  • Materials and Techniques:

    Lithograph

  • Museum number:

    E.332-1901

  • Gallery location:

    In Storage

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Winsome children humorously aping the manners of adults were a popular subject for genre scenes. In the 1830s the artist William Henry Hunt exhibited a series of twenty such images at the Old Water-Colour Society in London. These were later produced as lithographs and published as Hunt’s Comic Sketches (1844). The series included two images of black children. This image, which was originally exhibited as 'Jim Crow' but re-titled 'Master James Crow – Out of his Element', and a companion piece 'Miss Jem-ima Crow', re-titled 'Miss Jim-Ima Crow – A West Indian Cinderella' (museum number E.333-1901).

Both works appear to have been painted from living models who have been posed with studio props to suggest a narrative. James Crow (whose name references ‘Jim Crow’ the comic blackface act first seen in London in 1836) is ‘out of his element’, i.e. away from the heat of his supposed homeland, and has to warm himself in front of the stove. Tending the fire was a common duty of black domestic servants in British homes, many of whom were boys or young men.

Physical description

Lithograph depicting black boy sitting on small barrel with bellows on the floor beside him. He warms his hands against a stove.

Place of Origin

London, England (printed and published)

Date

1840 (printed and published)

Artist/maker

William Henry Hunt, born 1790 - died 1864 (artist)
Fairland, Thomas, born 1804 - died 1852 (lithographer)

Materials and Techniques

Lithograph

Dimensions

Height: 55.9 cm, Width: 40.6 cm

Descriptive line

'Master James Crow', lithograph by Thomas Fairland after William Henry Hunt, 1840

Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)

Image of the Black, Vol. IV, Part 2, Cambridge, Mass. & London, England: Harvard University Press, 1989, pp.61 & 2
'Winsome children depicted from a viewpoint of indulgent superiority were among the most frequent performers in humorous genre scenes. William Henry Hunt was responsible for a whole series. Two were of black children, exhibited at the Old Water-Colour Society in London with the titles 'Jim Crow' (1837) and 'Miss Jem-Ima Crow' (1839). Lithographs after them were subsequently published in a volume of 'Hunt’s Comic Sketches' mainly composed of images of white children aping their elders … In this collection the two watercolours of black children were given obviously comic titles: 'Master James Crow – Out of his Element' and Miss Jim-Ima Crow – a West Indian Cinderella'. Both must have been painted from living models posed and surrounded with studio ‘props’ to suggest a story. The boy, out of his element (the sun), warms himself in front of a stove. The West Indian Cinderella kneels by the hearth, unable to go to the ball suggested by the print of a dancing black labelled James Crow.'
Black Victorians, Black People in British Art. Edited by Jan Marsh, Lund Humphries, 2005, p.136
'In the 1830s William Henry Hunt exhibited a sequence of twenty humorous images of children later lithographed as 'Hunt's Comic Sketches' (1844). Some featured black children, in amusing or sentimental scenes.'

Subjects depicted

Servant

Categories

Prints; Children & Childhood; Black History

Collection code

PDP

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Qr_O127673
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