National Museum Jamaica houses a collection of transferware pitchers and dishes sold by Rebecca Brandon in 19th century Kingston, Jamaica. These ceramics feature images of Black, creole, and mixed-race Jamaican women and verses written in Jamaican Patois. Produced in the years surrounding the Emancipation of Slavery in 1838, the ceramics are evidence of the ways gender, race, and emancipation shaped the material world of Kingston at this time.
Catherine Doucette will introduce Rebecca Brandon and the transferware ceramics she offered for sale at her fancy warehouse in Kingston. Through an examination of the ceramics at National Museum Jamaica, this presentation will consider the shifting demographics of the early post-emancipation marketplace in Kingston, Jamaica and the developing consumer class of Black, mixed-race, and creole women.
This talk will be on Thursday 20th November at 6pm at the Georgian Group HQ, 6 Fitzroy Square, London W1T 5DX. Refreshments will be served after the talk. See below for a booking link.
Biography:
A member of JHR, Catherine Doucette is a PhD candidate in Art and Architectural History at the University of Virginia. Her research explores the material culture and decorative arts of the early modern Caribbean and Atlantic world. Her dissertation brings together and considers objects, images, and spaces made in early colonial Jamaica during the late seventeenth-century to the early post-emancipation period, including tortoiseshell combs and cabinets, oil portraits, town plans, transferware ceramics, and mahogany furniture. Before starting her PhD, Catherine earned her master’s degree in Art History from The Courtauld Institute of Art. Catherine has held fellowships at The John Carter Brown Library, The William L. Clements Library, and the Winterthur Museum, Garden, & Library.
To book:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/jhr-fgsj-the-world-of-emancipation-in-jamaica-through-ceramics-tickets-1856510445719?aff=oddtdtcreator |
