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Publisher
Griffith & Griffith
Datec. 1897
MediumAlbumen prints mounted on cardboard
DimensionsMount: 3 1/2 × 7 in. (8.9 × 17.8 cm)
Credit LineGift of Simón de Swaan
Object numberS2023.1.36
Not on view
DescriptionImage depicts a group of black people playing cards around a table. “Darktown” was a generic term given to African-American neighborhoods around the turn of the century, and was associated with negative stereotypes.
The card playing scene seems to depict black people enjoying their life in a normal day. Yet, it's important to note the written notices on the wall in caricatured black dialect: "De lawd lub de churfel giver" (The Lord loves the cheerful giver) and "Lebe yo razzer at de do deakon jones," with the final s written backward (Leave your razor at the door, Deacon Jones), a clear reference to violence. These same notices appear in photographs of different scenes with different sitters, revealing "Darktown Euchre Party" to be a curated studio scene. The subject of card playing was likely intended for stereotypical or moralizing purposes, in reference to gambling or immoderate leisure.
(Source: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/679707, accessed 05/07/23)
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Additional Details
Inscribed
Recto, left margin ( vertical ) : "[SOLD ONLY BY] Griffith & Griffith / Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Liverpool, Eng. "
Recto, right margin ( vertical ) : " William H. Rau, Photographer, Phila. "
Recto, right margin ( vertical ) : " William H. Rau, Photographer, Phila. "
Dan Weiner
Date: 1956, published 1998
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Object number: 2001.6
Dorothy Shakespear
Date: 1999
Medium: Printed book
Object number: 2002.31
Renée Stout
Date: 2008-10
Medium: Acrylic, latex paint, spray paint, plastic rhinestones, wood, glass, metal, varnish, collage, and found objects
Object number: 2016.2
Thomas Nast
Date: published October 24, 1874
Medium: Wood engraving on newsprint
Object number: 2019.13.257
Norman Bluhm
Date: 1961
Medium: Ink and casein on paper, mounted on Masonite
Object number: 1989.4
Thomas Nast
Date: published November 11, 1876
Medium: Wood engraving on newsprint
Object number: 2019.13.348
Thomas Nast
Date: published July 4, 1874
Medium: Wood engraving on newsprint
Object number: 2019.13.247