Revolutionary Playing Card

1793–1794

Not on view

Returned to lender

This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.

This playing card celebrates the revolutionary spirit of the enslaved people in Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) who overthrew the ruling class to achieve their freedom. It features a Black man wearing the red, blue, and white of the new French Republic and seated atop a bag of coffee with sugar cane rising at his back, a gun in his hand, and a broken yoke and shackle at his feet. This figure stands in for the Jack of Diamonds in a deck issued during the French Revolution, which features personifications of liberty and equality in place of royalty. Such depictions of revolt and self-possession were rare in Western images of emancipation, which typically presented bound Black subjects pleading for their freedom. The inscription beneath his feet declares the motto, "Egalité de couleurs" (equality of colors), a proclamation of unity for the new republic.

Artwork Details

Overview

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Exhibition History

Title: Revolutionary Playing Card
Designer: Jean Démosthène Dugourc (French, Versailles 1749–1825 Paris)
Date: 1793–1794
Culture: French
Medium: Woodcut engraving
Dimensions: 3 1/8 x 2 1/8 in. (8 x 5.5 cm)
Classification: Prints
Credit Line: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, Département des Estampes et de la Photographie (RESERVE KH-204 [6]-BOITE ECU)
Curatorial Department: European Sculpture and Decorative Arts