DISCOVERART

David Drake

Storage Jar

1857
Stoneware and glaze
45.7 × 43.2 cm (18 × 17 in)

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● On view now — Gallery 161

Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago · verified July 2026

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FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

This boldly inscribed storage jar was made by David Drake, who was born enslaved around 1800 and learned the art of hand-coiling, throwing, and glazing pottery in Edgefield, South Carolina. “LM” stands for Lewis Miles, Drake’s enslaver and owner of the Stoney Bluff Manufactory, part of the plantation where the potter labored from around 1849 to the 1860s. Drake was not the only artisan active in Edgefield, and his audacious works represent artistry, skill, and resilience at a time when enslaved people faced criminalization and violence for reading, writing, or even signing one’s name.

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