Feb 27, 2007 - Sale 2105

Sale 2105 - Lot 303

Price Realized: $ 9,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,500 - $ 5,000
A RARE PHOTOGRAPHIC PLACARD FOR THE JUBILEE SINGERS (MUSIC.) Fisk University Jubilee Singers, Organized from Emancipated Slaves, in Nashville, Tenn, U.S.A., Oct. 1871. Printed blue paper broadside, on cardboard mount with a large, original albumen photograph 6 3/4x9 1/8 inches) of the eleven-member singing group; two holes with metallic rims at the top for hanging; some spotting and minimal edge-wear; on the reverse: "Take Notice. . .," advising the promoters of the concert to "paste the date of concert on the Back at the Bottom, so as not to soil the front." Signed in print by F. J. Loudin the group's director and leader. Np (England), circa 1885

Additional Details

An extraordinary survival. From the notice on the reverse it is clear that this fragile placard with its large albumen photograph was carried by the group itself from city to city, and concert to concert. The two holes, with brass eyelets would facilitate hanging in the lobby of a theatre. The Fisk Jubilee Singers were the first such singing-group, made up of ex-slaves. Their success was immediate and so great that the concept caught on, and within a couple of years dozens of such groups were touring the post Civil War circuit both at home and abroad.