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Gainsborough Study or Old AFS?

This intriguing picture raises a number of possibilities—we have very little information to help us discover what or where this building is. The caption below reads "New York African Free School," but students place this attribution at the bottom of many of the images in this volume, so it does not necessarily denote the name of the building itself. It is also possible that this image depicts, not a contemporary American scene, but is instead a copy of a rural cottage painting exemplified by European artists like Gainsborough.

Student: Top image: John Read; Bottom image: John Burns
Date: 1817
Collection: Drawing
Page: 45