David Claypoole Johnston

American, 1799 - 1865

Explore Selected Works

David Claypoole Johnston, Study for "The House that Jeff Built", 1863, graphite on wove paper, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase), 2015.19.767

Study for "The House that Jeff Built"

David Claypoole Johnston · 1863 · graphite on wove paper ·  Accession ID  2015.19.767

Printed with black ink on off-white paper, twelve scenes are laid out in a grid of three rows and four columns. The sheet is titled “THE HOUSE THAT JEFF BUILT,” and most scenes show Black and white people or tools used in enforcing slavery. Each entry also has text below. They appear as follows. At the top left, the first image is of a wooden door in a wooden building with a barred window. Writing over the door lintel reads, “SLAVE PEN” and a sheet hung to the left of the door reads, “SLAVE SALE, AUCTION, Prime Lot, COTTON.” Text below the image reads, “This is the House that Jeff built.” The next scene is of three tied bales in front of the wooden wall of the house. The poster is visible on the wall, and text below reads, “This is the cotton by rebels call’d king, (Tho’ call’d by loyalists no such thing), That lay in the house that Jeff built.” Next are three Black adults and one Black child harvesting cotton. One adult holds a sack open and another carries a sack slung over one shoulder while the child picks the cotton. Text below reads, “These are field-chattels that made cotton kin, (Tho’ call’d by loyalists no such thing,) That lay in the house that Jeff built.” The final image on the top line shows two Black men sitting on a bench and two women and two children standing in front of the sale poster. Text below reads, “These are the chattels, babes, mothers, and men, To be sold by the head, in the slave pen: A part of the house that Jeff built.” Next is a white man wearing a suit and holding a gavel while standing behind a podium. The poster is laid on the surface in front of him, and text below reads, “This is the thing by some call’d a man, Whose trade is to sell all the chattels he can, From yearlings to adults of life’s longest span: In and out of the house that Jeff built.” The next illustration shows a ball and chain with an open padlock at the base of a post with shackles hanging from a nail. Text reads, “These are the shackles, for slaves who suppose, Their limbs are their own from fingers to toes; And are prone to believe say all that can, That they shouldn’t be sold by that thing call’d a man: Whose trade is to sell all the chattels he can, From yearlings to adults of life’s longest span: In and out of the house that Jeff built.” Next, four white men stand in line and one has a hand on the upper arm of a Black woman. Three of the men wear top hats and suits, and the fourth has a bulging belly, a floppy hat, and a slip of paper hanging from his jacket pocket. “These buy the slaves both make and female, And sell their own souls to a boss with a tail, Who owns the small soul of that thing call’d a man, Whose trade is to sell all the chattels he can, From yearlings to adults of life’s longest span: In and out of the house that Jeff built.” Next, two white man wear suits and stand next to a table in front of a portrait labeled J. Davis and Gen. Beauregard. One standing man gestures at a Black man who stands to one side. “Here the slave breeder parts with his own flesh, To a trader down south, in the heart of secesh., Thus trader and breeder secure without fail, The lasting attachment of him with a tail, Who owns the small soul of that thing call’d a man, Whose trade is to sell all the chattels he can, From yearlings to adults of life’s longest span, In and out of the house that Jeff built.” The final row begins with a whip and the text, “This is the scourge by some call’d the cat, Stout in the handle, and nine tails to that: Tis joyous to think that the time’s drawing near, When the cat will no longer cause chattels to fear, Nor the going, going, gone of that thing call’d a man, Whose trade is to sell all the chattels he can, From yearlings to adults of life’s longest span, In and out of the house that Jeff built.” Next, a bare-chested black woman is tied to a post and a white man holds out a cat-o-nine-tails. Her back is sliced with gashes. “Here the slave driver in transport applies, Nine tails to his victim, nor heeds her shrill cries. Alas! that a driver with nine tails his own; Should be a slave to a driver who owns only one: Albeit he owns that thing call’d a man, Whose trade is to sell all the chattels he can, From yearlings to adults of lifes longest span, In and out of the house that Jeff built.” Next is the head and shoulders of a white man who looks down and to our left under gathered, thunderous brows. He has a beaked nose, a long upper lip, downturned lips, and hollow cheekbones. “Here’s the arch rebel Jeff whose infamous course, Has bro’t rest to the plow, and made active the hearse, And invoked on his head every patriots curse, Spread ruin, and famine, to stock the slave pen, And furnish employment to that thing among men, Whose trade is to sell all the chattels he can, From yearlings to adults of life’s longest span: In and out of the house that Jeff built.” The final image is of the iron ball among broken shackles, chains, a broken gavel, and torn up sale posters. One intact poster reads, “Execution of JEFF DAVIS the TRAITOR, Dying speech and CONFESSION” under an image of a person hanging from a gallows. Text reads, “But Jeff’s infamous house, is doom’d to come down. So says uncle Sam, and so said John Brown. With slave pen, and auction, shackles, driver, and cat, Together with seller, and buyer, and breeder, and that, Most loathsome of bipeds by some call’d a man, Whose trade is to sell all the chattels he can, From yearlings to adults of lifes longest span, In and out of the house that Jeff built.”
David Claypoole Johnston, The House that Jeff Built, 1863, etching in black on wove paper, Corcoran Collection, 2015.19.2810

The House that Jeff Built

David Claypoole Johnston · 1863 · etching in black on wove paper ·  Accession ID  2015.19.2810

David Claypoole Johnston, Relaxing Soldier, c. 1860s, graphite with pen and black ink on wove paper, Corcoran Collection, 2015.19.543

Relaxing Soldier

David Claypoole Johnston · c. 1860s · graphite with pen and black ink on wove paper ·  Accession ID  2015.19.543