'Tah-too Duari, a native of Cape Palmas, Upper Guinea, West Africa...' Elizabeth Savage

Full-length portrait of a man from Upper Guinea, referred to here as 'Tah-too Duari', with his arms folded and looking to the viewer's left, and showing changes to skin pigmentation. He wears a striped blue breech-cloth, shows facial tattooing and an arrow design on his left upper chest.

Unused illustration from the paper "An account of the disquamation and change of colour in a Negro of Upper Guinea, West Africa", by Thomas Staughton Savage, published in summary form in Abstracts of the papers communicated to the Royal Society of London, vol.5 1843-1850, pp.623-624.

Thomas Staughton Savage (1804-1880) American Episcopal clergyman, missionary, physician and naturalist. Sailed for Africa as a missionary of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, and reached Cape Palmas, Liberia in 1836. He married Elizabeth 'Bessie' Savage (née Rutherford, 1817-1899) in 1844.

Little is known of the sitter other than what is listed in Savage's report: that he was twenty five years old when the likeness was taken and of the 'Grebo tribe', an indigenous community of the Kru ethinc group who historically occupied the coastal region of eastern Liberia. Alternative names are Glebo, Gedebo, Nyomowe, and Kuniwe.