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Title(s):
Fob seal, with motto "Am I not a man and a brother?"
Additional Title(s):

Am I not a man and a brother?

Anti-slavery medallion
Published/Created:
England, not before 1787.
Physical Description:
1 fob seal : gilding over copper or copper alloy, cornelian-colored glass ; face 31 x 24 mm, depth 43 mm
Holdings:
Rare Books and Manuscripts
Flat D 3
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund
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Copyright Status:
Copyright Not Evaluated
Related Content:
View catalog record for a signet ring bearing the design of the anti-slavery medallion
View catalog record for a fob seal with motto: "Am I not a woman and a sister?"
Classification:
Three-Dimensional Artifacts
Notes:
Art and emancipation in Jamaica, p. 295
Reilly, R. Wedgwood, v. 1, p. 114-115
Bindman, D. "Am I not a man and a brother?: British art and slavery in the eighteenth century." In Res 26 (Autumn 1994), p. 68-82
Honour, H. Image of the black in Western art, p. 62-64
Fob ring, depicting a kneeling enslaved man in shackles and motto that reads (in reverse): "Am I not a man and a brother?" The image is after a design by William Hackwood, for Josiah Wedgwood, and was adopted as the seal for the London Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1787. The image and motto is engraved in intaglio, within an oval of cornelian-colored glass. The metal frame incorporates images of two urns.
Letters closed with sealing wax impressed with the present fob seal would have indicated the sender's support for the abolition of slavery.
Subject Terms:
Antislavery movements -- Great Britain.
Black people in art.
Slave trade -- Great Britain.
Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.
Form/Genre:
Fobs (objects)
Seals (artifacts)
Contributors:
Woods, Joseph.
Webber, Henry, 1754–1826.
Hackwood, William, 1757–1839.
Josiah Wedgwood & Sons.
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