?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(RELIGION.) JASPER, REV. JOHN. De Sun Do Move. Tall chromolithograph, 32 x 12 inches, in what may be the original heavy tiger-striped oak frame. New York: Strobridge Lith., circa 1875-1880
a rare and virulently racist depiction of the reverend john jasper, delivering his famous sermon "de sun do move." Jasper (1812-1901), is without question one of the 19th century's most important black ministers. His fiery oratory and passionate delivery drew crowds of white as well as black Baptist congregants. Jasper had honed his oratory style in the 1840's delivering graveside sermons for slaves and free blacks, and making the occasional appearance at the First African Baptist Church of Richmond. It is a testament to Jasper's charismatic powers that while still a slave in the tobacco fields and factories in the 25 years preceding the Civil War, he was allowed to deliver sermons to sizeable crowds of slaves, despite a Virginia law specifically prohibiting such behavior. After the War and Emancipation, Jasper was formally ordained and organized the Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church. It was here that he delivered his famous sermon "De Sun Do Move." Though entirely counter to what science had known for centuries, Jasper's geocentric sermon still drew crowds of people of all persuasion. According to one skeptic "Jasper didn't convert me to this theory, nor did he convert me to his religion, but he did convert me to himself." we were unable to locate a single other copy of this lithograph, at auction or in any collection.
