Andiron

Details

Descriptive Terms

andirons
Andiron

Label

This pair of andirons, possibly by Joseph Webb (1734-1787) of Boston, date to about 1770-1830. At this time most pieces of cast iron work were unsigned. Today, we attribute unique cast iron pieces like these to artisans from surviving period documents. A 1756 trade card in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society, and designed by Paul Revere, shows Webb’s figural andirons alongside kettles, skillets, fire backs, mortars and pestles, and plain andirons among other cast iron goods.
Though most andirons of the time were plain, in the late eighteenth and well into the nineteenth centuries, there was a market for novelty pieces like these. Artisans used stereotypical images of African figures, Dutchmen, Scots, and Native Americans for figural andirons. This pair are in the shape African women with a low-cut square necklines that prominently displays their cleavage.
Historically, this form of andiron has been referred to as a “Naughty Nellie”-a derogatory slang term dating back to at least the latter half of the nineteenth century that implied promiscuity or sex work. This term is more often used for a risqué figural bootjack from the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries-usually, but not always, painted to represent Black women. This harmful depiction supported racist concepts of Black and African womanhood that included over sexualization. Artists like Webb used newspapers, books, and prints as design sources. In particular, images of free and enslaved African and Mixed-Race women in the Caribbean by artists like Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur, Agostino Brunias, and Marie-Joseph-Hyacinthe Savart were popular and may have influenced Webb’s designs.
Purchasing and displaying andirons featuring enslaved individuals or stereotypical representations of African figures implicated consumers in the Atlantic Slave Trade. Objects like these privileged a worldview that mocked and celebrated the de-humanization of African and Indigenous peoples. As a novel decorative item, consumers actively chose to purchase this specialized product, thus displaying their support of and profit from the Atlantic Slave Trade. As we look at harmful items like these andirons, it is important to remember that while they were made by and owned by white New Englanders, it is possible that people of color were forced to tend fires in which these andirons were used. Thus, a decorative item for one group of New Englanders was also a constant reminder of the cruelty towards a group of people who had become New Englanders by force.

Additional Identification Number

341.1981.2

Maker

Unknown

Accession Number

1999.546.2