Toussaint Louverture et la vieille esclave

Object Details

Ousmane Sow, 1935-2016, Senegal

Label Text

A Black liberation leader stands holding out his hand, staring into an as-yet-unrealized future, as a formerly enslaved woman rises. The Senegalese sculptor Ousmane Sow created this work as part of a series of sculptures commemorating the bicentennial of the French Revolution. Unlike those sculptures, however, Sow’s Toussaint Louverture depicts a figure who actually struggled against the French state, taking on the mantle of the original revolutionary principles (Egalité, Fraternité, and, above all, Liberté) surrendered by that point in Paris to the authoritarian rule of Napoleon.

The military leader of the Haitian Revolution, Louverture successfully channeled an uprising of free people of color and, later, enslaved people, into an armed movement that, by 1800, had ended both slavery and French rule on the island. Louverture became the head of the Western Hemisphere’s second independent revolutionary state (after the U.S.)—and its first leader of African descent. Toussaint Louverture’s name, and memory, lives on—as a symbol of autonomy, dignity, and liberation for peoples of African descent.

Description

Standing male figure in military unitform wearing a blue hat with cockade, a blue short jacket with epaulets, white breeches and boots. He holds the hand of a female figure sitting with curled legs at his feet with her head cast down. She wears a plain, dark shift like dress and head kerchief.

Exhibition History

Heroes: Principles of African Greatness, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., November 16, 2019–October 3, 2021

Conversations: African and African American Artworks in Dialogue - From the Collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and Camille O. and William H. Cosby, Jr., National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, November 7, 2014-January 24, 2016

African Mosaic: Selections from the Permanent Collection, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., November 13, 2013–August 12, 2019 (deinstalled April 23, 2014)

African Mosaic: Celebrating a Decade of Collecting, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., November 19, 2010-November 13, 2013

Touba M'Backe Gallery, New York, 1990

Centre Culturel Français, Dakar, 1989

Published References

Center for the Study of Slavery & Justice. 2014. The Many Faces of Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Haitian Revolution. Exhibition brochure. Providence: Brown University.

Dumouchelle, Kevin D. Heroes: Principles of African Greatness. Munich: Hirmer Publishers, 2023, cover, 16, 22-25, 204, 221-222, 225.

Kreamer, Christine Mullen and Adrienne L. Childs (eds). 2014. Conversations: African and African American Artworks in Dialogue from the Collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and Camille O. and William H. Cosby, Jr. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, pp. vi, viii, 139, no. 1, pl. 57.

Content Statement

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Image Requests

High resolution digital images are not available for some objects. For publication quality photography and permissions, please contact the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives at https://africa.si.edu/research/eliot-elisofon-photographic-archives/

Credit Line

Museum purchase, through exchange from Emil Eisenberg, and Mr. and Mrs. Norman Robbins, and with funds from Stuart Bohart and Barbara Portman

1989

Object number

2009-8-1

Restrictions & Rights

Usage conditions apply

Copyright

© Ousmane Sow/ADAGP, 1989

Type

Sculpture

Medium

Mixed media (iron, earth, jute, straw)

Dimensions

H x W x D: 220 x 100 x 110 cm (86 5/8 x 39 3/8 x 43 5/16 in.)

Geography

Senegal

See more items in

National Museum of African Art Collection

National Museum of African Art

Topic

Adornment

Power

male

female

couple

Record ID

nmafa_2009-8-1

Metadata Usage (text)

Usage conditions apply

GUID (Link to Original Record)

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ys7770c1f7b-7341-4e68-9e76-b9d0aa0551f6