Male Tea Shop Figure

Art Historical Context

Created as part of the Index of American Design, a New Deal initiative of the 1930s and early 1940s, David Ramage’s rendering captures a striking 19th-century shop figure once used to advertise a tea merchant. Standing over five feet tall, the original carved wooden figure would have stood outside or inside a store, its bold scale and painted details serving as an eye-catching emblem of trade in an era before widespread commercial signage. Ramage worked in watercolor, gouache, and graphite on paperboard, layering translucent washes with opaque touches to record every contour, costume fold, an...