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Creator:
Print made by John Raphael Smith, 1752–1812
after George Morland, 1763–1804
Title:
The Slave Trade
Date:
1791
Materials & Techniques:
Mezzotint, printed in color, published state on medium, slightly textured, cream laid paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 22 × 29 1/2 inches (55.9 × 74.9 cm), Plate: 18 3/4 × 25 1/2 inches (47.6 × 64.8 cm), Image: 18 1/4 × 25 3/8 inches (46.4 × 64.5 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Lettered, below image, lower left: "Painted by G Morland" ; below image, lower center left : "Lo' the poor Captive with distraction wild | Views his dear Partner torn from his embrace!"; below image, center: "SLAVE TRADE"; below: "London Publish'd Feb. 1 1791 by J.R. Smith. King Street, Covent Garden'; below image, lower center right: "A diffient Captain buys his Wife and Child_ | What time can from his Soul such ills erase?"; below image, lower right: "Engrav'd by J.R. Smith, Mezzotinto Engraver, to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales"

Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1978.43.283
Classification:
Prints
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
clouds | dog (animal) | enslaved people | families | genre subject | slavery | storm
Access:
Accessible by appointment in the Study Room [Request]
Note: The Study Room is open by appointment. Please visit the Study Room page on our website for more details.
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:41947
Export:
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John Raphael Smith published this pair (B19878.43.283 and B19878.43.284) of abolitionist engravings in February 1791, at the height of abolitionist fervor in Britain. Engraved after paintings by George Morland, the prints juxtapose a scene of European brutality with one of African benevolence. In the Slave Trade, an African family is torn asunder by white traders who forcibly separate a father from his wife and child. In African Hospitality, by contrast, a group of compassionate Africans rescue and care for a shipwrecked white family and other members of their crew. (Both narratives are elaborated in the verses inscribed underneath each image.)
Like Bigg’s A Lady and her Children Relieving a Cottager, which was also published by Smith, Slave Trade and African Hospitality bear the influence of the eighteenth-century "cult of sensibility." Sensibility placed particular emphasis on the emotions, especially sympathy, as a guide to moral action. By highlighting the capacity of Africans to "feel . . . as Europeans would do," Morland’s compositions argued in forceful—albeit also highly Eurocentric—terms against the moral wrong of slavery.

Gallery label for Figures of Empire: Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain (Yale Center for British Art, 2014-10-02 - 2014-12-14)

Figures of Empire: Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain (Yale Center for British Art, 2014-10-02 - 2014-12-14) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Caribbean - Crossroads of the World (El Museo del Barrio, 2012-06-12 - 2013-01-06) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and his Worlds (Yale Center for British Art, 2007-09-27 - 2007-12-30) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

The Romantic Print in Britain - Yale Center for British Art (Carnegie Museum of Art, 2004-02-14 - 2004-05-09) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

The Romantic Print in the Age of Revolutions: Hero, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (Yale Center for British Art, 2003-01-23 - 2003-06-01) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Timothy J. Barringer, Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2007, pp. 302-303, no. 31, N8243 S576 B37 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Figures of Empire : Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2014, p. 42, chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://britishart.yale.edu/sites/default/files/inline/Figures%20of%20Empire_booklet_FINAL.pdf [YCBA]

Figures of Empire : Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2014, p. 42, V 2556 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Slavery and Portraiture in 18th-century Atlantic Britain, [Website] , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2015, https://interactive.britishart.yale.edu/slavery-and-portraiture/ [Website]

David H. Solkin, Art in Britain 1660-1815, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2015, pp. 244-45, fig. 250, N6766 S65 2015 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]


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