Country Dance. Union Hall. Jersey

Artist Edward Williams Clay

Period1828

MediumBlack ink on paper, with hand coloring

DimensionsSight: 4.6 × 4 in. (11.7 × 10.2 cm)

Inscribed "Country Dance. / UNION HALL. JERSEY." below the engraved vignette.

SignedInitialed "E W C fecit" in the lower left corner of the dance floor.

ClassificationsPrints

Credit LineGift of Mrs. J. Amory Haskell, 1932

Object number286

DescriptionA line engraving that depicts a male and female couple in Quaker dress of the period dancing on a wooden floor. The woman wears a high waisted dress with shawl, collar, and bonnet. The man is dressed in long trousers with a fall front, waistcoat, long-tailed coat, high collar shirt and stock, and broad-brimmed hat. Both are posed in dance positions, with the female actually in a jump off the floor. Original hand coloring includes light red, blue, gray, and yellow. The plate has been cut down.
Curatorial RemarksEdward Williams Clay (1799 - 1857) was born in Philadelphia, where he was active as an artist, engraver, and lithographer from about 1820 to 1837. After studying art in Europe for roughly three years, Clay returned to Philadelphia where he turned out book and periodical illustrations, sheet music covers, portraits, and character vignettes. His most known work, issued in Philadelphia between 1828 and 1830, was titled "Life in Philadelphia." It satirized middle class African Americans in that city. By 1831, Clay focused his efforts on political cartoons. About 1835, he relocated to New York City where he continued his artistic career. Failing eyesight by 1852 caused him to give up his profession. Through family connections, he took a position as court clerk in Delaware. Edward Clay died on 31 December 1857. His remains were interred at the Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia. Only two complete copies of Lessons in Dancing are currently known, making this small engraving a particularly rare item. A handwritten tag from the MacReynolds Collection (presumably dealers) affixed to the reverse of "Country Dance / Union Hall. Jersey" states that the hall was located in Camden, New Jersey, and that the work was printed in 1830. The date of publication is clearly in error. Furthermore, there is no corrobrating evidence that the site depicted was actually in Camden, although few other Philadelphia area communities in South Jersey would have been large enough in 1828 to support an organized labor union, if indeed that is what the term union actually represents. What Clay's image does depict, however, are two members of the Society of Friends engaging in an act which up to that time had been strictly prohibited by the Quakers - dancing. That religious group also discouraged the performance of music, as well as stage or theater productions. By the second quarter of the nineteenth century, these long-held social restrictions appeared to be easing. NotesThe engraving is one of eight plates that depict dancing couples contained in a pictorial pamphlet entitled "Lessons in Dancing, Exemplified by Sketches from Real Life in the City of Philadelphia, by a Dilettant." published in Philadelphia, PA, in 1828. The publisher was R. H. Dobson. Four of the eight plates are initialed "E W C," so it can be identified as the work of Edward Williams Clay (1799 - 1857), the most prolific caricature cartoonist of that era in Philadelphia. A copy of this rare work owned by the American Antiquarian Society of Worcester, MA, is annotated with pencil inscriptions on five of the eight plates, including this one titled "Country Dance. / UNION HALL. JERSEY." It reads "Friends or Quakers." The other plates bear the following identifications: Balancez / CITY ASSEMBLY, Turn Partner / FANCY BALL, Valse / BONNAFON's COTILLION PARTIES, Pas de deux / CHESTNUT STREET THEATER, Jig / TAYLOR'S ALLEY, Double Shuffle / SHIPPEN STREET, and Pat Juba / AFRICAN FANCY BALL. The finely detailed and delicately colored plates show couples from a range of social classes, races, and religious groups.

Collections