Preparations for the Enjoyment of a Fine Sunday Evening, Accurately Copied from the Upper Room of Drymane’s Tavern, Norfolk

Description

Watercolor on paper of "Preparations for the Enjoyment of a Fine Sunday Evening, Accurately Copied from the Upper Room of Drymane's Tavern, Norfolk", March 4, 1797, from the Latrobe Sketchbooks, by Benjamin Henry Latrobe. This scene depicts several African American men and women shaving and grooming from Latrobe's perspective at a tavern. He described the drawing on the next page: "The man lathered must remain sitting, or rather lying almost on his back during the whole time. Being properly lathered by the man with the tails he must wait till the man in the cap comes to shave part of his right cheek. This being performed the man on the barrell [sic] takes his seat [and] the man with the tails takes the razor. The shaving then proceeds over the lips [and] chins [and] the razor is then put by. In the meantime the man on the barrell [sic] has taken his hair out of twists, and spread his tail. The man in the cap reenters [and] having fixed his left hand firmly on the nose and eyes of the shavee he proceeds with the operation keeping his patient down by imprecations [and] manual exertion. The man with the tails at the same moment begins combing and pulling the wool of the man on the tub till he had compleated [sic] the coiffure. The tail man [and] cap man then end the scene by mutually shaving each other."