- Title:
- The Little Black Boy (Plate 30)
- Additional Title(s):
- Verso: The Voice of the Ancient Bard (Plate 31)
- Part Of:
- Date:
- 1789
- Materials & Techniques:
- Relief etching printed in brown ink, with watercolor and pen and black ink on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream wove paper
- Dimensions:
- Sheet: 7 1/2 x 5 3/8 inches (19.1 x 13.7 cm), Plate: 4 1/8 x 2 5/8 inches (10.5 x 6.7 cm), Plate: 4 3/8 x 2 1/2 inches (11.1 x 6.4 cm)
- Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Lettered inside image: "For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear | The cloud will vanish we shall hear his voice. | Saying: come out from the grove my love & care, | And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice. | Thus did my mother say and kissed me. | And thus I say to little English boy. | When I from black and he from white cloud free, | And round the tent of God like lambs we joy: | Ill shade him from the heat till he can bear, | To lean in joy upon our fathers knee. | And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair. | And be like him and he will then love me."; Lettered on verso, inside image: "The Voice of the | Ancient Bard. | Youth of delight come hither, | And see the opening morn, | Image of truth new-born. | Doubt is fled & clouds of reason. | Dark disputes & artful teazing. | Folly is an endless maze. | Tangled roots perplex her ways. | How many have fallen there! | They stumble all night over bones of the dead; | And feel they know not what but care; | And wish to lead others when they should be led."
- Credit Line:
- Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
- Copyright Status:
- Public Domain
- Accession Number:
- B1992.8.12(17)
- Classification:
- Prints
- Collection:
- Prints and Drawings
- Subject Terms:
- beard | branches | children | crook, shepherd's | harp | kneeling | leaf | literary theme | men | nude | river | shepherd | staff (walking stick) | standing | text | trees | vines | water | women
- Access:
- Accessible by appointment in the Study Room [Request]
Note: The Study Room is open by appointment. Please visit the Study Room page on our website for more details. - Link:
- https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:52500
- Export:
- XML
- IIIF Manifest:
- JSON
David Bindman, The Image of the Black in Western Art : From the " Age of Discovery" to the Age of Abolition, , vol. 3, part 3, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2010, pp. 9-10, 11, fig. 4, N8217.B535 I42 2010+ (YCBA) Citations are to Vol. 3, Part 3 [YCBA]