The Face of Thomas Day – Caswell County, Milton Print Signed Numbered w/COA

Description: The Face of Thomas Day – African American Cabinetmaker signed print w/ COA See the face of Thomas Day. A Photoshop reconstruction of of the Thomas Day statue located at the North Carolina Museum of history. Signed, numbered, print with Certificate of Authenticity and made of Kodak Professional Endura Premier Lustre paper. Actual Print contains no watermark. “Thomas Day (1801-1861) was a free black furniture craftsman and cabinetmaker in Milton, Caswell County, North Carolina. Born a free black man in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, Day moved to Milton in 1817 and became a highly successful businessman, boasting the largest and most productive workshop in the state during the 1850s. Day catered to high-class white clientele and was respected among his white peers for his craftsmanship and work ethic. Day came from a free and relatively well-off family and was privately educated. Today, Day’s pieces are highly sought after and sell for high prices; his work has been heavily studied and displayed in museums such as the North Carolina Museum of History. Day is heralded in modern society as an incredibly skilled craftsman and savvy businessman, specifically in regards to the challenges his race posed to his success in the Antebellum South.” Day came from educated and well-to-do parents. His mother, Mourning Stewart, was the daughter of a free mulatto who owned some 800 acres of land as well as slaves. His father, John Day, was the son of a white woman from South Carolina, who was sent away to a Quaker community to have her child. “….Being a black cabinetmaker was a rarity–96 percent of the cabinetmakers in the state were white…….According to Renwick Gallery chief Robyn Kennedy, ‘He was a very astute businessman.’ In addition to owning his own workshop and fields to supply timber, Day also employed roughly 14 workers and owned slaves. He sought to compete with cities like Philadelphia and New York and established a reputation for his output. Even when he represented 11 percent of the state’s furniture market, he never lost his unique artistic flair that kept customers asking for more. Governor David S. Reid, for example, ordered no fewer than 47 pieces from Day. Many free blacks in North Carolina owned slaves and experienced capital success as Day did; it was the combination of Day’s landowning status, his mulatto race, his education and business prowess, and his free black status that led to his success, while his exquisite craftsmanship and respectful customer service set him apart from other free black businessmen. Much of Day’s capital success and high social status is attributed to his skill in crafting beautiful furniture that his customers sought after; owning a Day piece, with its artful mastery, would confer a symbol of status on a family by demonstrating they had wealth to purchase a luxury good from a skilled artisan workshop. Day tended to employ popular urban styles for the basic design of his pieces, and then add to these designs by improvising his own motifs and style. He most often worked with imported mahogany, and sometimes placed mahogany veneers over structures made from woods of less quality or expense, such as yellow pine or walnut. Thomas Day and his workshop produced various types of furniture and practical pieces, such as wardrobes, bureaus, coffins, commodes, and lounges, as well as created architectural woodwork for wealthy homes in the Milton region. Today, Thomas Day is remembered as a skilled craftsman who instilled his own sense of style into popular designs to create highly unique furniture and architecture. Since his death, especially following the Civil War and throughout the 20th century, Day was recognized for his perseverance, talent, and ambition in spite of his race and social situation. About Digital Yarbs: I'm Cheryl A. Daniel (Digital Yarbs) a Photoshop composition artist who enjoys history. I reconstruct life masks, statues and busts of famous early Americans and historic figures. Using life masks, I completed a forensic/academic study of how the subjects most likely appeared using Adobe Photoshop to add flesh, hair, and other details. My site, yarbs.net features reconstructions and animations of these life masks along with a little history and how the subjects might have looked in daguerreotypes and photographs. About Life Masks: To understand what these historic figures really looked like we cannot rely on paintings as they suffer from “artistic license” and “sympathetic treatment” commonly employed by many contemporary portrait artists. Before photography, the art form of the life mask was the best way to create an exact likeness of an individual. Basically, plaster would be applied to the head and sometimes upper torso to create a mold from which a life mask or bust of the person could be cast. This would result in a three-dimensional, faithful transfer capturing in minute detail the true likeness of the subject. Sculptors John Henri Isaac Browere and Jean-Antioine Houdon cast life masks of George, Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and many other historical figures. Thomas Jefferson endorsed his life mask bust, as did James and Dolley Madison when they saw it several days later. James Madison said of his own life mask, "Per request of Mr. Browere, busts of myself and of my wife, regarded as exact likenesses, have been executed by him in plaister, being casts made from the moulds formed on our persons, of which this certificate is given under my hand at Montpelier, 19, October, 1825." Browere’s casting process utilized a proprietary plaster mixture that due to its lightweight nature did not distort the facial features of his subject’s face as the common plaster utilized by his contemporaries did. This by all accounts resulted in what was considered an extremely accurate likenesses. J. I. Browere’s “work achieved a stark realism uncommon in that day. His plaster busts showed the age-lined brow, the pock-marked face; his subjects appeared as they were, not as artists generally portrayed them. His life masks were, and remain, the most authentic likenesses of some historic figures who lived in a day before photography provided more easily obtained but similarly uncompromising portraits." Digital Yarbs Items: My works are available as postcards, high quality archival giclée prints and limited edition canvas prints numbered and signed with certificate of authenticity. Canvas Prints: Are Limited Edition, Signed and numbered with Certificate of Authenticity. Giclee wrapped canvas 16x20 .75 inch edge, open back with mirror border. Paper Prints: Are Signed, numbered with Certificate of Authenticity and made of Kodak Professional Endura Premier Lustre paper. My signature on the back is signed with an archival acid free ink pen and the blue logo stamp uses archival acid free ink. Postcards: Are 4×6 premium matte. Postcards come as a single card, pack of 10, pack of 25, or pack of 50. Canvases, prints and post cards contain NO watermarks. Free Shipping within 3-5 business day via USPS. If for any reason you are not completely satisfied with your item, we will completely refund your order. Visit yarbs.net for more information on this image and to see more of my works with life masks. What did the Founding Fathers look like? Can we know for certain? Video will open in a new window Using the mobile app? Copy this link into your browser:

Price: 11.5 USD

Location: Providence, North Carolina

End Time: 2024-08-11T14:07:29.000Z

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