Details
Creator Summers, William, artist.
Contributor Hunt, Charles, engraver.
Isaacs, Harrison, publisher.
Title Life in Philadelphia. "How you like de new fashion shirt...?" [graphic] / Chas. Hunt, Sc.
Publisher London: Pub. by Harrison Isaacs, Charles Street, Soho Sqre
Publisher ENG. London. 1831
Date [ca. 1831]
Physical Description 1 print: hand-colored aquatint; sheet 38 x 28 cm.(15 x 11 in.)
Description Racist caricature ridiculing the 1829 male fashion fad of striped shirts depicting an African American man-woman couple discussing the "new fashion shirt" that he is wearing. In the right, the man stands slightly turned and hands on hips. He is attired in a blue waistcoat with tails, a bronze vest, a green shirt with red striped collar, green cravat, tan pants, white gloves, black shoes, and a neck fob. He holds a black top hat in his left hand. In the left, "Miss Florinda," stands, forward facing, and holding a fan near the right side of her face. She wears a red headpiece over her hair that is in a top knot. She is attired in an orange calf-length, cap sleeved dress with floral details, red trim, and décolleté neckline; white opera gloves; red ankle-laced slippers; and jewelry, including earrings, necklace, and bracelets. She holds a handkerchief in her left hand and states that she finds the fashion elegant and how his wearing it within the "Abolition siety" will make him look like "Pluto de God of War!" They stand in a parlor with patterned carpeting and in front of three framed pictures on the wall, including portraits of a Black man and woman and a landscape view. In classical mythology, Pluto is also the god of the underworld and wealth. The figures are portrayed with oversized and exaggerated features. Their skin tone is depicted with black hand coloring.
Notes Title from item.
Date inferred from content and name of publisher.
After the work of Edward W. Clay.
Attributed to William Summers.
Plate 9 of the original series published in Philadelphia.
Contains seven lines of dialogue in the vernacular and dialect above the image: How you like de new fashion shirt, Miss Florinda? I tink dey mighty elegum_ I see you on New year day when you carry de colour in de Abolition ‘siety -You look just like Pluto de God of War!
Inscribed: Plate 9.
LCP exhibit catalogue: Made in America p. 29.
Nancy Reynolds Davison's E.W. Clay: American Political Caricaturist in Jacksonian America (PhD. diss., The University of Michigan, 1980), p. 88-89. (LCP Print Room Uz, A423.O).
Charles Hunt was a respected 19th-century London engraver who was most known for his aquatints of sporting subjects.
RVCDC
Description revised 2021.
Access points revised 2021.
Subject African Americans -- Caricatures and cartoons -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia.
African American women -- Caricatures and cartoons -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia.
African American men -- Caricatures and cartoons -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia.
African American women -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia.
African Americans -- Clothing & dress -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia.
Conversation.
Fads -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia.
Middle-class -- Clothing & dress -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia.
Racism in popular culture.
Genre Caricatures -- 1830-1840.
Aquatints -- Hand-colored -- 1830-1840.
Printer Isaacs, Harrison, publisher.
Location Library Company of Philadelphia| Print Department| Life in Philadelphia (London Set) [P.9707.2]
Accession number P.9707.2