Dancing in the Flames

This essay investigates a pair of early American andirons that depict identical African figures, each holding a decanter and wine glass. Manufactured by enslaved laborers at an unidentified iron foundry, the andirons depict Black bodies laboring in service. The andirons resemble contemporary representations of enslaved attendants serving White subjects in portraits, as well as woodblock-printed figures that decorated newspaper advertisements for slave auctions. Yet because of their materiality, they complicated the fantasies these visual artifacts proclaim. When considered in their original context of use in an early American parlor, the andirons reveal dis-humanization through spectacularized violence. Produced of iron, these smiling sculptures could be subjected to a fire’s flames without damage. They forged racialized understandings of personhood and supported a view of fireplaces as sites for violence against enslaved people. The andirons reveal that early American refined interiors were not simply zones for performing politeness but also anti-Black.