The Newark Museum of Art has handed ownership of an 1852 stoneware jug back to the descendants of the enslaved potter who made it, then turned around and bought the piece back so it could stay in the museum's permanent collection. The jug, signed by David Drake and crafted from stoneware measuring 36.8 centimeters by 27.9 centimeters, had been part of the museum's holdings since 2022, when it was acquired to help teach visitors about the history of enslavement and enslaved labor.
The agreement restores ownership of the work to Drake's heirs before the museum repurchases it for its permanent collection, according to The Art Newspaper. The outlet reports the jug was returned to Drake's descendants and subsequently purchased by the museum from the Dave the Potter Legacy Trust LLC, an entity established for the benefit of Drake's descendants. The museum funded the repurchase through the Mr. and Mrs. William V. Griffin Fund and the Barbara Harrison Wescott Fund.
Drake, who lived from around 1801 to 1874, was enslaved in South Carolina at a time when state laws forbade teaching enslaved people to write — a restriction that makes his signed and dated pots especially significant to historians, since his signature stands as a documented act of defiance. The Newark museum had folded the jug into its 2023 reinstallation of its American art galleries, a reimagined presentation titled Seeing America: 18th and 19th Century, using the piece to help visitors understand the realities of enslaved labor in the pottery trade.
How the Deal Came Together
Amber Germano, the museum's senior director of registration and collections management, approached Lisa Funderburke, the Newark Museum of Art's director and chief executive, over the summer about signing a letter that would open a dialogue with Drake's family regarding the jug's future. Funderburke has said she wanted to understand the purpose and impulse behind repatriation proposals before moving forward, a step that led to direct conversations between the museum and the family.
Those talks ultimately produced several appraisals of the jug, with the museum settling on a value of around $135,000 for the piece. Yaba Baker, one of Drake's great-grandsons, has said his family believed that removing Drake's pots from public view entirely would be a disservice to the broader project of telling Drake's story. George Fatheree, an adviser to the Drake family, described the outcome in Newark as a win-win.
Part of a Wider Pattern Among Museums
Newark's arrangement is the latest in a string of similar agreements involving institutions that hold Drake's work. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston announced on October 29, 2025, that it had reached a historic agreement with Drake's known descendants covering two stoneware vessels in its collection, restoring ownership of both and ultimately purchasing one back while returning the other to the family, according to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts has likewise restored ownership of Drake's 1840 Double-handled Jug to his descendants and says it will purchase the piece back, according to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The Georgia Museum of Art reached a comparable agreement transferring a 19th-century, four-gallon Drake jar to the family before repurchasing it, as reported by ARTS ATL, which also notes that scholars have identified roughly 250 surviving Drake vessels across museum and private collections. Return agreements covering other Drake works have also been reached with institutions including the Telfair Museums in Savannah, according to The Art Newspaper's reporting.
The Milwaukee Art Museum took a related but distinct path, transferring two Drake vessels to the Dave the Potter Legacy Trust before purchasing one back and keeping the second on long-term loan, according to the Dave the Potter Family organization. LMU Magazine has reported that Fatheree's broader approach encourages institutions holding what he describes as coerced cultural property to return Drake jars to descendants for moral and historical reasons rather than because any legal requirement compels it.
A Market That Has Taken Notice
Drake's pottery has drawn significant attention and money at auction in recent years, with his works fetching five- and six-figure prices. Published accounts differ on the exact record set by his 25-gallon Poem Jar, dated 1858: The Art Newspaper reported the piece sold for $1.65 million at Crocker Farm Auctions in Maryland in 2021, while ARTS ATL reported the same general sale produced a record of $1.56 million. A separate Crocker Farm auction listing for a 25-gallon poem jar from the same sale cites a $1.3 million hammer price plus a 20 percent buyer's premium, according to Crocker Farm.
For Newark, the museum has said it intends to keep the jug publicly accessible within its permanent collection going forward, continuing to use the piece as part of its ongoing effort to teach the history of enslavement and enslaved labor through its American art galleries.
