Credit: © The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.9779
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    "Tah-too Duari, a native of Cape Palmas, Upper Guinea, West Africa..."

    Date
    1846
    Creator
    Elizabeth Savage (1817 - 1899, British) , Artist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (painting): 333mm
    width (painting): 222mm
    Description
    Full-length portrait of a man from Upper Guinea, referred to here as 'Tah-too Duari', with his arms folded and looking to the viewer's left, and showing changes to skin pigmentation. He wears a striped blue breech-cloth, shows facial tattooing and an arrow design on his left upper chest.

    Unused illustration from the paper "An account of the disquamation and change of colour in a Negro [sic] of Upper Guinea, West Africa", by Thomas Staughton Savage, published in summary form in Abstracts of the papers communicated to the Royal Society of London, vol.5 1843-1850, pp.623-624.

    Inscribed above: "Tah-too Duari a native of Cape Palmas, Upper Guinea, West Africa sketched by Mrs T.S.Savage".

    Thomas Staughton Savage (1804-1880) American Episcopal clergyman, missionary, physician and naturalist. Sailed for Africa as a missionary of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, and reached Cape Palmas, Liberia in 1836. He married Elizabeth 'Bessie' Savage (née Rutherford, 1817-1899) in 1844.

    Little is known of the sitter other than what is listed in Savage's report: that he was twenty five years old when the likeness was taken and of the 'Grebo tribe', an indigenous community of the Kru ethinc group who historically occupied the coastal region of eastern Liberia. Alternative names are Glebo, Gedebo, Nyomowe, and Kuniwe.
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Africa
          > Guinea
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