Clockwork Dinner Bell

Details

Descriptive Terms

bells (idiophones)
figurines
wood (plant material)
iron (metal)
painting (coating)
Bell, Service

Label

This object appears as a Black man in uniform holding a hammer in one hand and a strike bell in another, and is an example of the racist Blackamoor trope in Western European and American decorative arts.

This figure was once believed to be associated with Toussaint L'Ouverture, a Black man who led the first successful rebellion of enslaved people in the Americas and became a prominent military leader in the Haitian Revolution. No known portraits taken from L'Ouverture's life are known. Instead, nineteenth-century artists and artisans invented images of L'Ouverture in antagonistic caricature or as heroic figure. French artisans often featured L'Ouverture in clocks and other clockwork mechanisms as a racist caricature with grossly stereotyped Black features. They were, as some scholars believe, designed specifically to return the heroic image of Toussaint to an enslaved condition for the insult Toussaint and the Republic offered France by successfully throwing off their colonial yoke. In and around Boston, images of L'Ouverture in prints or on redware jugs supported the work of abolitionists. Boston's leading nineteenth-century abolitionists believed that Toussaint's story could be used to support their cause. Even so, this treatment once more reduced L'Ouverture to an object that could carry the ideologies of its white makers and consumers.

Relatedly, Black figures in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American decorative arts were often depicted in service-oriented roles and adorned utilitarian objects like andirons, shop signs, or lawn jockeys. This object falls squarely into that category, with the figure's Black body transformed into an automaton. The figure has a spring with a lever (visible on the back) which runs through the head and body. When the lever is pushed, the hand with the hammer moves and strikes the bell while the eyes and chin move up and down.

As with many of the objects collected by Henry Davis Sleeper, the origins of this wooden automaton are unknown. Recent conservation treatments revealed three generations of paint and many old repairs. The original paint color of the jacket was a thin wash of blue, it was then painted red. The vest was previously a lighter, thinner red. The leggings were previously pale blue. Judging by the paint characteristics, this was not the original color, however it is unclear what was. The heads, hands and boots have been overpainted, but were originally black. The eyes and teeth never have been overpainted.

It is unclear whether this figure was always meant to appear dressed in military fashion. The sculpture suggests an eighteenth-century uniform, but perhaps instead livery worn by a servant or enslaved person. There is also evidence that this mechanical figure originally had a hat, although there is no way to know whether it was the appropriate type. All of the known nineteenth-century images of L'Ouverture show a Black man in military dress including a tricorn hat. Regardless of whether this is intended to represent L'Ouverture, to contemporary eyes, it is visually offensive.

While this object's original function may have been to signal the beginning of a meal service, the spring mechanism is broken. Sleeper may have acquired it purely for its culinary associations, as he installed it in the Golden Step Room at Beauport, one of five dining rooms in the house. The object accompanies other painted wooden ship models and nautical decoration, offering another possible clue as to its origins.

Associated Person

L'Ouverture, Toussaint

Associated Building

Original to Beauport, Sleeper-McCann House (Gloucester, Mass.),

Maker

Unknown

Location of Origin

United States

Dimensions

29 3/4 x 11 1/2 x 11 1/4 (HxWxD) (inches)

Credit Line

Gift of Constance McCann Betts, Helena Woolworth Guest and Frasier W. McCann

Accession Number

1942.1981