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(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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George Fuller (1822-1884) of Deerfield, Massachusetts, traveled through the Deep South as an itinerant portrait painter in the 1850s. Inspired by the work of the French artist Edourad Frère (1819-1886), Fuller also began seeking out what he called "the expressions of what we call lowly or everyday life." He chose to focus on scenes of everyday life among plantation slaves. This is one of three sketches Fuller produced of female domestic slaves working in an open air laundry yard. Usually located near the kitchen and dairy, laundry yards were common on large plantations. Although he considered slavery "a very bad cause," Fuller did not advertise his antislavery views while working in the South.

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