Newark Museum Returns David Drake’s Jug, Then Buys It Back

The Newark Museum of Art has transferred ownership of David Drake’s signed 1852 stoneware jug to his descendants and bought it back for the permanent collection. The title change, followed by reacquisition, extends a new restitution model for art made under enslavement while keeping the vessel on public view.

 
 

Newark Returned the Jug Before Acquiring It Again

The agreement concerns a brown stoneware jug that Drake made in 1852, measuring 36.8 by 27.9 centimeters (about 14.5 by 11 inches). The Art Newspaper reported the agreement on November 12, 2026. Its account and the museum’s revised credit line say Newark first returned the work to the Dave the Potter Legacy Trust, formed for the benefit of Drake’s descendants, and then purchased it from the Trust.

That sequence matters. The museum did not merely relabel an object while keeping the same ownership history. Legal title passed to Drake’s descendants, giving the family the power to determine what happened next; the museum’s present ownership begins with a new purchase from the Trust. The object remains in Newark, but its chain of title now records the family as a party rather than treating Drake’s coerced labor as an unchangeable starting point.

Newark bought the jug in 2022. The museum’s February 2023 gallery announcement identified a 19th-century jug by “Dave (later recorded as David Drake)” among the additions to Seeing America: 18th & 19th Century. That reinstallation used slavery and Black history to reconsider race, representation, power, and enslaved labor in American art.

Several appraisals preceded the new agreement, according to the November 12 report, and the parties settled on a value of about $135,000. That figure is the reported valuation; no separate purchase price has been published. Newark’s acquisition credit names the Mr. and Mrs. William V. Griffin Fund and the Barbara Harrison Wescott Fund.

Infographic by Art in Context, based on Axios Richmond, The Art Newspaper, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

 
 

Why Drake’s Signature Changes the Ownership Question

Drake was born into slavery around 1801 and worked in the stoneware industry of Edgefield District, South Carolina. His vessels were useful objects—jars and jugs made for storage—but their scale, control of form, alkaline glazes, signatures, dates, and occasional poems also make them central works of African American art. Newark’s 1852 jug is signed, placing the maker’s identity on an object from which the economic system of slavery denied him both property and profit.

The signature does not by itself create a conventional stolen-art claim. Drake was legally barred from owning the vessel in the first place, so there was no title in his name that could simply descend to his heirs. The family and participating museums instead call the process “ethical restitution”: a voluntary transfer of present-day title in recognition that the original separation of maker, object, and proceeds was coerced. The Legacy Trust states its mission as restoring Drake’s legacy to his descendants and securing their participation in decisions about the surviving vessels.

A useful comparison is Drake’s 1840 storage jar at Harvard’s Fogg Museum. It is a different vessel, but its substantial body and inscribed authorship show why these ceramics cannot be reduced to anonymous plantation material culture.

This distinction also explains why “return” does not always mean removing a pot from public view. The descendants can sell a vessel back, lend it, or place it elsewhere. Ownership and custody become separate decisions, and a museum that reacquires a work does so with the family’s consent and compensation built into the new transaction.

David Drake’s Storage Jar (1840) at the Fogg Museum. Artwork by David Drake; photograph by Daderot, via Wikimedia Commons. CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. Cropped.

 
 

Six Museums, Three Different Outcomes

Newark is the sixth museum in a documented sequence of Drake agreements since October 2025. The outcomes are not identical. Official statements from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Milwaukee Art Museum show how the model can split works between reacquisition and family ownership while keeping both accessible.

Institution	Works	Outcome after transfer
MFA Boston	Two 1857 jars	One repurchased; one family-owned and on long-term loan
Telfair Museums	One 1861 jar	Family-owned and loaned back for display
Georgia Museum of Art	One four-gallon jar	Repurchased; a separate family-owned jar was loaned for display
Milwaukee Art Museum	Two vessels	One repurchased; one family-owned and on long-term loan
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts	One 1840 jug	Repurchased for the permanent collection
Newark Museum of Art	One 1852 jug	Repurchased for the permanent collection

The table reveals the model’s substantive contribution: restitution is the transfer of decision-making power, not a required destination for the object. At Telfair, the family owns the 1861 jar and lends it to the museum. At Boston and Milwaukee, ownership was divided between reacquired works and family-owned loans. Georgia, Virginia, and Newark repurchased works after recognizing the Trust’s title. Public access survived each arrangement, but the authority to authorize that access no longer bypassed the descendants.

In an August 2026 PBS NewsHour interview, Pauline Baker and Yaba Baker explained why title matters even when a vessel stays in a gallery: ownership connects legacy, assets, and the family’s ability to decide. Their account supplies something a wall label cannot—the descendants’ own explanation of what changed.

The Newark transaction also corrects a possible misunderstanding of the word “acquisition.” A repurchase is still an acquisition, but it differs from Newark’s 2022 purchase because the seller is now the family’s Trust. Nothing in the available record establishes that a court ordered the return or ruled the museum’s earlier title invalid. The force of the agreement is ethical and contractual: Newark chose to recognize the coerced conditions of creation, transfer title, and acquire the jug again from the descendants.

Robert Mills’s 1825 map of Edgefield District, South Carolina. Library of Congress Geography and Map Division, via Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain Mark 1.0.

 
 

Newark’s Agreement Establishes a New Chain of Title

Newark’s revised credit and the November 12 report establish that the 1852 jug was transferred to the Dave the Potter Legacy Trust before the museum reacquired it.

The Newark agreement does not disclose the jug’s detailed ownership history between its creation in 1852 and the museum’s 2022 purchase.