Quasheba
Pen-and-ink sketch, with wash, of a Black woman kneeling beside a brick wall with a large basket in her lap. Her name, ‘Quasheba’, is inscribed beneath the image. Quasheba is an Akan name meaning born on a Sunday.
The sketch is part of an album containing fifty-seven drawings (PAH4886–PAH4943) created by British naval officer Aiskew Paffard Hollis (1764–1844) during the late 1780s and the 1790s. The majority relate to his service as a lieutenant in ‘Pegase’ in 1785–90, in ‘Andromeda’ in 1790–93 and in ‘Queen’ in 1793–96. Included are portraits of Hollis’s shipmates, as well as scenes of everyday life ashore and afloat. It is unclear exactly when or where Hollis made this portrait of Quasheba, but it was likely while the ‘Andromeda’ was stationed in the Caribbean in the first half of 1793, possibly in Barbados. Quasheba's West African name suggests that she may have been born in Africa (and survived the Middle Passage) or in the Caribbean to Akan parents who retained naming practices. This sketch is mounted on the same page as PAH4895.
The sketch is part of an album containing fifty-seven drawings (PAH4886–PAH4943) created by British naval officer Aiskew Paffard Hollis (1764–1844) during the late 1780s and the 1790s. The majority relate to his service as a lieutenant in ‘Pegase’ in 1785–90, in ‘Andromeda’ in 1790–93 and in ‘Queen’ in 1793–96. Included are portraits of Hollis’s shipmates, as well as scenes of everyday life ashore and afloat. It is unclear exactly when or where Hollis made this portrait of Quasheba, but it was likely while the ‘Andromeda’ was stationed in the Caribbean in the first half of 1793, possibly in Barbados. Quasheba's West African name suggests that she may have been born in Africa (and survived the Middle Passage) or in the Caribbean to Akan parents who retained naming practices. This sketch is mounted on the same page as PAH4895.