Dave the Potter

[David Lockmiller]

The New York Times reported today (10/31/2025):

In the 1800s, while enslaved in South Carolina, a man known as Dave the Potter worked as an artisan, making stoneware vessels for food storage. He inscribed his name, dates and poetic verses on the pots, an act of resistance at a time when it was a crime for him to read and write.

Over more than a century, the stoneware pottery has become a powerful representation of the artistic history of enslaved people. The pots made by Dave, who later became known as David Drake when he adopted the surname of his first enslaver after his emancipation, were sold at auctions and displayed in museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the International African American Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

This week, the Boston museum announced its first restitution of artwork created by an enslaved person. The museum said that it had reached an agreement with Mr. Drake’s heirs to restore “ownership” of two vessels in its collection to the family. The vessels will continue to be on display — one is on loan from the family, and the other was purchased back by the museum.

The agreement means that, after more than a century, at least some of Mr. Drake’s many wares have been put back into the hands of his people.

“This marks the first time that the museum has resolved an ownership claim for works of art that were wrongfully taken under the conditions of slavery” in the 19th-century United States, the announcement said.