(SLAVERY) Painting titled The Slave Traders

Sale 2663 - Lot 390

Unsold

Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000

(SLAVERY.) Painting titled "The Slave Traders." Oil on board, 9¾ x 8 inches; small chip to upper right, minimal wear from frame around edges; unsigned, later typed label on verso. New York, circa 1850s?

Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

On the African coast, a slave trader directs an enslaved woman to a boat, separating her from her child, as an armed guard stands nearby. The painting is unsigned. Although similar paintings and engravings such as George Morland's "The Slave Trade" circulated among abolitionists in the early nineteenth century, we have traced no other examples of this particular composition.

Provenance: a later typescript label states that it was purchased by Albany, NY architect Bartholomew Schermerhorn DeForest (1823-1886) while visiting New York City in 1858. He later served in the Civil War and was in Cleveland, OH from 1876 until his death.