Architectural molding fragment from Charleston, South Carolina

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

A molding fragment from Charleston, South Carolina. The fragment is from a horizontal architectural element of a building. It has a cement body with a decorative plaster of Paris surface layer that is finished in gray paint. The back of the fragment is covered with sandy colored stucco. The profile of the fragment is wide at the top and narrows towards the base. It has a flat top above a fillet with two large cavetto moldings below, separated by a thumb molding at the center. The flat top of the fragment is mostly intact and its bottom and side edges are broken and jagged. The Old Slave Mart Museum catalog number, [R168], is handwritten in black ink over a small rectangular patch of white painted in the bottom left corner of the fragment’s decorative side. There is an “X” written in graphite on the decorative surface, near the bottom right.

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