Bacon’s Rebellion, Wax Museum, Williamsburg

This late twentieth-century postcard shows a wax museum depiction of Bacon’s Rebellion at the now-defunct Williamsburg National Wax Museum. Based on a real historical scene, the wax sculpture of Governor William Berkeley bares his chest to Nathaniel Bacon, daring the rebel to shoot him. Bacon is depicted as a dark haired, dashing cavalier, the way which most historical novels of the nineteenth-century described him. Berkeley and his companion are similarly inaccurately dressed in the style of the late 1700s.