In historic move, MFA Boston returns works by 19th-century enslaved artist David Drake to his heirs

In a very rare and likely precedent-setting agreement, the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) Boston has agreed to return two works from 1857 by the Black potter David Drake, who made his ambitious jars while enslaved, to his present-day descendants.

By the terms of the contract, one of those vessels will remain on loan to the museum for at least two years, according to the lawyer George Fatheree, who is representing Drake’s descendants. The other vessel — a masterpiece known as the “Poem Jar” — has been purchased back by the museum from the heirs for an undisclosed sum. Now the work comes with “a certificate of ethical ownership.”

“In achieving this resolution, the MFA recognizes that Drake was deprived of his creations involuntarily and without compensation,” a museum spokesperson said in a sta