Artwork Details
- Title
- Memory Bottle with Harmonica and Razor
- Artist
- Unidentified
- Date
- early 20th century
- Location
- Dimensions
- 12 3⁄8 x 6 3⁄8 in. diam. (31.3 x 16.1 cm. diam.)
- Credit Line
- Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr. and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson
- Mediums Description
- glass bottle with composition dough embedded with metal, plastic, glass, and wood objects, gilded with bronze paint
- Classifications
- Keywords
- Allegory — other — memory
- Object — tool
- Object — furniture — clock
- Object — weapon — gun
- Object — musical instrument — harmonica
- Object Number
- 1986.65.306
Artwork Description
Some memory jars may have come from African American traditions of decorating graves with objects owned by the deceased. The objects embedded in the surface of these bottles and jars provide clues about when they were made or who made them. For example, Jug with Finial includes a campaign button for William Jennings Bryan, a Democratic presidential candidate between 1896 and 1908, while High-Buttoned Shoe shows a macabre row of teeth that may have belonged to the maker.