ABSTRACT
Antebellum artists depict black folk primarily in rural settings and, predictably, most often the settings are plantations, where most of the slaves lived. By far the most popular activity on the plantation, and the most popular theme for artists of the antebellum period, was the African-American dance. Artists pictured soloists, couples, and group dancers; gifted dancers and amateurs; formal and informal dances; dancing with musical accompaniment and dancing without music. In the informal dance scenes, the focus generally is on one dancing couple, composed of a man and a woman, who are surrounded by the onlookers and the musicians who provide music for the dancing. The collection of antebellum dance scenes includes two portrayals of formal dances, the one, Christian Mayr’s “Kitchen Ball at White Sulphur Springs”, a carefully conceived oil painting, and the other, Eyre Crowes “A Negro Ball”, a pen-and-ink sketch, apparently hastily executed.
