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Jim Crow Trade Figure, c. 1835

Offered by: Allan Katz Americana

Description
Possibly from the carving shop of Charles J. Dodge, New York City. A wonderful "in-use" painted surface.

Thomas Dartmouth Rice (May 20, 1808-September 19th, 1860_ was a white theater performer and playwright who used African American vernacular speech, song, and dance to become one of the most popular minstrel show entertainers of his time.

Rice was born in 1808 in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York. He left school during his teenage years when he acquired an apprenticeship with the woodcarving shop of Charles Dodge. Despite his occupational training, Rice quickly made a career as a performer. By 1827, he was a traveling actor. The actual origin of the Jim Crow character has been lost to legend. A likely source is that Rice had observed and absorbed African American traditional song and dance in the racially integrated Manhattan neighborhood where he grew up. In addition, as an early performer he toured the Southern slave states. By the early 1830s he was appearing in Louisville, Kentucky, mimicking black speech. It was in New York that he opened at the Park Theatre and introduced his Jim Crow act. This early animated carving, with its iron mounting brackets, might very well have served as an outdoor sign to be used by theaters when Rice was appearing. According to an article in The New York Times, there was a wooden statue of Rice in his Jim Crow character that stood in various New York locations outside theaters when Rice performed. The New York Times said it was apparently carved by Rice himself in 1833, although a different account in the same paper says it had been carved by a celebrated figurehead carver called Weeden, and yet another article attributes it to Rice's former employer Charles Dodge.

A Life-size carving of Thomas Dartmouth Rice as Jim Crow is in the collection of the Shelburne Museum. It is pictured in Artists in Wood, by Frederick Fried, page 8. Penny and I spent a lovely day at the Shelburne Museum (you should too!) comparing the two carvings. It was obvious that they are by the same carver.

This Jim Crow carving was in the collection of the contemporary realist artist Philip Pearlstein (b. 1924). It appears in one of his works. In his life-size paintings of nudes, Pearlstein uses intriguing objects as props.

More Information

Origin:	United States, New York
Period:	19th Century
Materials:	Carved and polychrome painted wood.
Condition:	Excellent. The lower hand has been replaced.
Creation Date:	Circa 1835
Styles / Movements:	Folk Art, Americana
Incollect Reference #:	95527

Dimensions

W.	11 in;	H.	36 in;	D.	16 in;
W.	27.94 cm;	H.	91.44 cm;	D.	40.64 cm;

Message from Seller:

A passionate collector and a successful and respected dealer in early American advertising since 1973, Allan expanded this passion to include collecting period American folk art and Americana. He subsequently became a dealer in this material in 1985. Allan has earned a reputation, in both the dealer and collector communities, as being an authority in this subject matter, for having extensive knowledge, a keen eye for the material and a love for this exciting American art form.

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