Last updated: August 15, 2025
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Pepper-Pot: A Scene in the Philadelphia Market, painting by John Lewis Krimmel - 1811
Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Title: Pepper-Pot: A Scene in the Philadelphia Market, painting by John Lewis Krimmel - 1811
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Object Information: Oil on canvas painting, 19 1/2 x 15 1/2 inches (49.5 x 39.4 cm) Framed: 24 1/2 × 20 1/2 inches (62.2 × 52.1 cm)
Repository: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 125th Anniversary Acquisition. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Edward B. Leisenring, Jr., 2001. Accession Number: 2001-196-1. https://www.philamuseum.org/collection/object/134441.
Description:
In 1811, German-born painter John Lewis Krimmel debuted Pepper-Pot: A Scene in the Philadelphia Market, a painting that centers a free African American woman selling pepper pot soup. The Black woman is depicted wearing a pale blue empire style dress with black trim, a red handkerchief around her neck, no hat and no shoes, sitting inside a brick structure next to her large silver pot of soup, bowls, and spoons for serving. Black women street vendors would cook and sell food to support themselves financially in the 18th and 19th centuries. Pepper pot soup presence on the streets of cities in the eastern United States follows the trajectory of Africans forced into the transatlantic slave trade: rooted in West African traditions, adapted through Caribbean influences, and brought to Philadelphia. It is even thought to have sustained General George Washington and the soldiers at Valley Forge, which is possible through the presence of his enslaved cooks, Isaac and Hannah Till, there with them the winter of 1777.
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Object Information: Oil on canvas painting, 19 1/2 x 15 1/2 inches (49.5 x 39.4 cm) Framed: 24 1/2 × 20 1/2 inches (62.2 × 52.1 cm)
Repository: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 125th Anniversary Acquisition. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Edward B. Leisenring, Jr., 2001. Accession Number: 2001-196-1. https://www.philamuseum.org/collection/object/134441.
Description:
In 1811, German-born painter John Lewis Krimmel debuted Pepper-Pot: A Scene in the Philadelphia Market, a painting that centers a free African American woman selling pepper pot soup. The Black woman is depicted wearing a pale blue empire style dress with black trim, a red handkerchief around her neck, no hat and no shoes, sitting inside a brick structure next to her large silver pot of soup, bowls, and spoons for serving. Black women street vendors would cook and sell food to support themselves financially in the 18th and 19th centuries. Pepper pot soup presence on the streets of cities in the eastern United States follows the trajectory of Africans forced into the transatlantic slave trade: rooted in West African traditions, adapted through Caribbean influences, and brought to Philadelphia. It is even thought to have sustained General George Washington and the soldiers at Valley Forge, which is possible through the presence of his enslaved cooks, Isaac and Hannah Till, there with them the winter of 1777.