Ian--

The original painting , "The Banjo Man," is hung in the Valentine Historical Museum in Richmond, VA.  It was painted in either 1815 0r 1813--I have found varying accounts.  In either case Mr. Sweeney would have been far too young to have invented the banjo depicted in it. I would guess the painting is probably from the South due to the early date and the fact that it's being played by an African American gentleman.  There is a close-up picture of the banjo archived in Banjo Hangout in a discussion about hanging ribbons from banjos (the banjo is beribboned), from July ,2010. From the close-up picture it appears  the banjo does have a circular wooden rim, there is a drone string, and the instrument has at least four and possibly five strings.  The painting is in need of repair  so the details are not as crisp as they might be.--Rob Morrison.

It sure looks like an instrument that we could probably all pick up and get a tune out of without too much difficulty.

Ian--

I found more info on "The Banjo Man."  The artist was an Englishman born in 1780 who died in 1854.  He moved to Richmond VA and established himself in 1812 as a "portrait painter in oil."  His most famous painting is "The Sword Swallower" which now hangs in the Valentine Museum in Richmond along with "The Banjo Man."  In 1816 he estalished the Virginia Museum in Richmond.  He spent the rest of his career in Virginia.  So I thinks it's fairly certain the scene depicted, given the time frame, took place in Virginia and probably in or near Richmond.--Rob Morrison

The guy's name was Sy Gilliat -- he had been a slave to Lord Botetourt in Williamsburg and a well known fiddle player, who played for the (British colonial) governor's balls and so on.  (No rude jokes about that, I mean dances that he hosted.)  There is some question whether the banjo man is the fiddler or his son, if he had a son; anyway there was a Sy Gilliat in Richmond later, who I believe was a free person of color in a census before the Civil War.  But I don't believe that later Sy would have been this old in 1813.

There is some documentation of the painting in Iconography of Music in African=American Culture, 1770s-1920s, by Eileen Southern and Josephine Wright.

Hmm...I look at that painting and I think that could easily be a large gourd banjo.  Thornburg makes some big gourd banjers like that. Lots of gourd banjos look just like that when viewed mostly from the front.

What makes you all so positive it's a hoop banjo?

The little boy is pointing right at it, and he is obviously say "Hoop...Hoop".

Hoop.

I made my point.

While one can never be certain about this things, it's still my opinion that Sweeney and one of the Bouchers (there were two) "invented" the modern wood frame banjo--i.e., a banjo with a wooden hoop for a body.  I have found no sheet music cover, drawing, painting (despite the one in question), or newspaper description prior to 1840 or 1841 that shows or describes a wood frame banjo.  If you examine the several sheet music images of Sweeney in Bob Carlin's book, he appears to be playing a a gourd banjo up to that date and a wood frame banjo thereafter. Moreover, according to Carlin's performance chronology, Sweeney was performing in Baltimore in May and June of 1841 (which would have placed him in proximity to the Bouchers around that time) and did not perform again in that city until 1854.  That may jibe with a series of 1849 newspaper ads in which E. Wilhelm Boucher, Sr. of Baltimore claims that he was the "first" to manufacture banjos and tambourines.   Moreover, performance advertisements in the early 1850s are beginning to claim that Sweeney "invented" the banjo.   

I'm going to go a step further and say that the wood frame banjo evolved from the tambourine and not a drum shell.  I speculated before that early tambourines were all tack-heads like the earliest wood frame banjos.   Well, I may have been wrong.   Recently, three important tintypes of two African-American minstrel performers surfaced on eBay.  (Sadly, I hesitated because of the asking prices and didn't get them.)  One man is playing a minstrel banjo and the other a tambourine.  The latter tambourine looks exactly like the body of an early minstrel banjo with metal bracket tighteners.  

Coming back to the painting at the Valentine Museum:  I think that the artist (who obvious wasn't very conversant in things banjo) painted a gourd banjo that just happens to look like a wood frame banjo.  Until another image or description of a wood frame banjo appears between 1813/14 and 1840, I'll stand by my contention that the "big bang" that produced the modern banjo occurred in Baltimore in 1840/41.   

Bob, I just posted photos of a fairly early tambourine that I purchased from an antiques dealer in Hagerstown, Maryland.  It is 15" in diameter, ash or oak hoop, tin jingles, adjustable tension. Unfortunately there is no provenance.

Thanks for posting the tambourine photos, James.  It'll be interesting to see more early tambos.  

Meanwhile, here are links to the three eBay tintypes, if anyone is interested.   I've posted the listing numbers below. 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CIVIL-WAR-ERA-BLACK-AMERICANA-BANJO-MUSICIA...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CIVIL-WAR-ERA-BLACK-AMERICANA-MUSICIAN-TINT...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CIVIL-WAR-ERA-BLACK-AMERICANA-MUSICIAN-TINT...

310803586910

310731862214

310806255138

Bob, Both Bob Carlin and Pete Ross have told me that they stood in front of this painting at the Valentine and still could not tell if it was a gourd or a frame.  I've actually researched Warell a little. His name was James Warrell, an Englishman, who had moved to the Richmond, Va area. By 1812 he was offering his services to the local gentry just west of town 'as a Portrait Painter in Oil.' That would put him within 40 miles of Sweeny's (who was two years old at that time) birthplace in Appomattox Courthouse. Among Warrell's canvases was the Sena Soma, or the Sword Swallower, now at the Valentine Museum. In 1814 he designed Peter Francisco's Gallant Action . . . in Amelia County, Virginia, later engraved by D.Edwin. In 1816 Warrell, with Richard Lorton, a Petersburg artist, aided in establishing in Richmond a museum of art and natural science known as the Virginia Museum. Cheers.

Hi Mark,

I guess the question for me is "who would have made a wood frame banjo in 1814?"  I don't think there were many white banjoists before Sweeney--at least I haven't identified many.  Perhaps an enslaved African in Virginia created a wood frame banjo that early.  I wouldn't rule that out, especially since the documentary and visual evidence is still so scarce.  What does exist, though, in the way of pre-1840 engravings, paintings, etc. of black banjoists pretty much suggests that gourd banjos were the norm.  

I'm certainly willing to keep and open mind, and wouldn't be crushed if someone turns up new evidence to refute my current claims about Sweeney and the Bouchers.  I'm still digging into old newspapers myself.  So maybe some new and exciting bit of information will turn up!  That's the fun of early banjo research.          

I don't think it is a frame banjo. If they were known in that area that early, I think Sweeny would have been playing one earlier on. 

My two cents- I too think the banjo in this painting is a gourd banjo.  Have we yet discussed the fact that it looks like it has no wide peghead either?  just ending in the tapered neck stick right at the top near where he's fretting.  ....dare I say...I almost wonder if it even had pegs, or maybe the strings were just tied on like one sees here on akontings?  (ok now I'll duck and run) lolol...

To me, the interesting thing about this painting is not whether it is a gourd or frame banjo, but that here we have a black musician playing a banjo for white gentry, who seem completely comfortable dancing to it, all 20 years before Sweeny starts his career. What music was being played upon that banjo? The Valentine Museum says that although this painting used to be labeled as 'Sy Gilliat', they have no evidence that it is indeed Sy. Sy Gilliat, (d. 1820), however, was one of the most popular musicians in the late Colonial and early American period. A body servant of Lord Botetourt, Governor of Virginia, he played both violin and banjo and was the semiofficial fiddler at state functions and balls in Williamsburg. After the Revolution, he was active in the Richmond area performing with his assistant, London Briggs, who played flute and clarinet. A typical set list played by Gilliat and Briggs would commence with a Minuet, and progressing through Country Dances, Congos, and Hornpipes, would conclude with an energetic Jig. ( Samuel, Mordecai’s Richmond in By-Gone Days, 1856.)

Hey Mark thanks for all the historical information, That just opened up new stuff to check out. Still making my way slowly through,"Dance and Its Music in America 1528-1789",Kate Van Winkle Keller. That last part about the set list is so in time with what I have just been reading about these dances and the musicians that were the players, yep most definitely slaves but very popular players at these functions.

Here is Sweeny's banjo from the cover of Sweeny's Virginia Melodies (1840)