Objects Search Record
Images
Metadata
Catalog Number |
B2016.03.17 |
Object Name |
Painting |
Title |
Prestwould Slave Quarter |
Museum |
Alexandria Black History Museum |
Description |
The painting depicts the interior of a slave quarter at Prestwould Plantation in Mecklenberg County, VA. Built in the late eighteenth century in Mecklenberg County, Virginia at what was then considered the Piedmont frontier, Prestwould was a self-sufficient plantation that grew tobacco and corn and raised domestic farm animals for sale. The slave quarter depicted in the painting was built in the 1780s and is the last survivor of a cluster of slave cabins that housed several hundred enslaved people at Prestwould. It is a rare example of a fully detached slave cabin and may well be the earliest known surviving one in the Chesapeake if not the oldest surviving slave quarters in all of Virginia. As with many plantations, Prestwould's former slave quarters were occupied into the twentieth century. In late 1991, the Prestwould Foundation initiated restoration of the structure. It is currently interpreted as a slave dwelling. This painting is part of Sherry Z. Sanabria's "Sites of Conscience" series. |
Material |
Museum Board |
Artist or Maker |
Sherry Z. Sanabria |
Date |
2004 |
Dimensions |
H-32 W-40 inches |
Search Terms |
Plantations Slave quarters Slavery |
Subjects |
Plantations Slave quarters Slavery |
Related People |
Sanabria, Sherry Z. |