The Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) Boston is pairing a 1768 silver bowl by Paul Revere with a 1857 stoneware jar by the enslaved artist David Drake in a major reinstallation of its 18th-century American art galleries, opening June 20. The reinstallation, the first since 2010, is overseen by chief curator Ethan Lasser, a Drake scholar, and aims to shift focus from British rule and independence to cultural exchange and interdependence. Other works include Thomas Sully's 1819 painting of George Washington and a 2024 stainless steel bust by Alan Michelson that critiques Washington's legacy.
This pairing matters because it directly confronts the contradictions of American liberty by placing a celebrated symbol of colonial resistance alongside the work of an enslaved artist who risked punishment to inscribe his pots with poetry. By moving Drake's jar from the folk art gallery to the main American galleries, the MFA Boston challenges traditional hierarchies in art history and reframes foundational narratives to include voices long excluded. The juxtaposition invites visitors to consider who was left out of the revolutionary conversation about freedom.