Design and Build Lab (DaBL) at American University

3D Reproduction of Storage Jar

PLA (poly-lactic acid) and 3D printer, approx. 1.5 x 1.5 x 2 in.

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Original object:

David Drake (1801-1865), Storage Jar, 1858

Alkaline-glazed stoneware, Height: 22 5/8 in.; diameter: 27 in.; circumference (widest): 72 in.; 82 lbs. (37.2 kg); approximately 25-gallon capacity

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Purchase, Ronald S. Kane Bequest, in memory of Berry B. Tracy, 2020

 

David Drake was an enslaved potter in the Edgefield District of South Carolina. His enslavers tasked him with making jugs to store food and other perishables, which Drake came to approach as a mode of resistance. He made the jugs especially large and, most exceptionally, he signed some of them and inscribed poetry into the wet clay. This 3D reproduction is based on his Storage Jar. Working from photographs of the jar, DaBL used a 3D printer to recreate Drake’s work. The original object’s political significance inheres in its scale and the poem and signature etched into its body—all of which are lost in the reproduction. There is a long tradition of displaying reproductions of artworks in museums, which can be a means to compensate for lapses in a collection. This model demonstrates the limits of this practice and offers an opportunity to reflect on the difference between homage and appropriation within the space of the museum and amid the power dynamics it negotiates.