The Wedgwood anti-slavery medallion was an abolitionist symbol produced and distributed by British potter and entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood in 1787 as a seal for the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. The medallion depicts a kneeling Black man in chains with his hands raised to the heavens; it is inscribed with the phrase "Am I not a man and a brother?"[1][2]
The figure was likely designed and modelled by Henry Webber and William Hackwood with Wedgwood's involvement. The medallion was produced as a jasperware cameo by Wedgwood's factory—the Etruria Works— and widely distributed in Britain and the United States.[3] These cameos were worn as pendants, inlaid in snuff boxes, and used to adorn bracelets and hair pins, rapidly becoming fashionable symbols of the British abolition movement.[1][2] The medallion helped to further the abolitionist cause and is today accepted as "the most recognizable piece of antislavery paraphernalia the movement ever produced."[4]
- ^ a b Guyatt, Mary (2000). "The Wedgwood Slave Medallion: Values in Eighteenth-Century Design". Journal of Design History. 13 (2): 93–105. doi:10.1093/jdh/13.2.93. ISSN 0952-4649. JSTOR 3527157.
- ^ a b Hamilton, Cynthia S. (2013-12-01). "Hercules Subdued: The Visual Rhetoric of the Kneeling Slave". Slavery & Abolition. 34 (4): 631–652. doi:10.1080/0144039X.2012.746580. ISSN 0144-039X. S2CID 143983709.
- ^ "V&A · The Wedgwood anti-slavery medallion". Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved 2022-04-04.
- ^ Oldfield, John R. (1998). Popular Politics and British Anti-slavery: The Mobilisatition of Public Opinion Against the Slave Trade, 1787-1807. Psychology Press. p. 156. ISBN 978-0-7146-4462-2.
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