Darktown opera-the lovers leap: Whar yer gwine to, dis ain't in de book – Antique Wall Art
![Darktown opera-the lovers leap: Whar yer gwine to, dis ain't in de book, [New York] : Currier & Ives, 1886. — antique lithograph](https://images.jameslantos.com/img/87/876eaab7cf30-L.webp)
(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
Darktown opera-the lovers leap: Whar yer gwine to, dis ain't in de book comes to life in this antique lithograph, reproduced from the original with every detail intact. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.
Framed, it is ready for the wall; unframed, it is ready for the frame you choose. A conversation-starting piece for home, office, or as a meaningful gift. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Snapshots of the Past, founded in 2001, has served tens of thousands of customers worldwide.
Darktown opera-the lovers leap: Whar yer gwine to, dis ain't in de book
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Subtitled "Whar yer gwine to, dis ain't in de book," this 1886 lithograph parodies the operatic "lovers' leap" scene, with the romance played for ridicule. It belongs to Currier & Ives's Darktown series, a set of racist caricatures that used exaggerated dialect and stereotyped features to portray African Americans as comic figures. Published in New York that year, the series drew on minstrel-show imagery that was widely circulated in the period. Today it is studied as evidence of how popular printmakers depicted Black Americans, and its humor is best understood as a demeaning one.
| Created / published | [New York] : Currier & Ives, 1886. |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 print : lithograph. |
| Genre | c1983 |
| Notes | Caricature issued as part of the Darktown comics" series. Currier & Ives : a catalogue raisonné / compiled by Gale Research. Detroit |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 1,536 × 1,095 px · prints to 5 × 4 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-HPA-174327 |
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