Whirligig in the form of a caricatured man swatting a bee

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

A painted, wooden whirligig in the form of a caricatured man swatting a bumble bee. The man is standing on a dark, wooden block. He is depicted wearing a red jacket, black necktie, white shirt, yellow pants, and black boots. The tails of his jacket are made of red painted metal. A yellow top hat with a red band sits atop his head. He has a spherical head, painted black, with round white eyes and a large red and white mouth. He has large, round paddles for hands. His arms spin around to swat at a wooden bumble bee suspended from the top hat by a curved metal wire. The bee has a black head, black and yellow striped body, white wings, and a metal stinger. A card with handwritten text is tied around the man’s leg with tan cord.

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