Object Details
- lithographer; publisher
- Currier & Ives
- original artist
- Baird, Auguste Francois
- Description
- Although the Atlantic slave trade was abolished in 1808, some slavers continued to illegally buy slaves in Africa and transport them to locations where slavery was legal. This colored print depicts a West African slave market on the coast of Sierra Leone and is based on an 1840 painting by the French artist Auguste-Francois Biard and its derivative print by British engraver, C.E. Wagstaff. The original painting was given to abolitionist, Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton and is currently owned by the Wilberforce House in the United Kingdom. Currier and Ives did not credit the original artist when producing the lithograph.
- At the center of the scene, two white French slave-traders inspect a potential slave who lies on his back. Another man brands a female slave. In the lower right, an African slave-dealer sits smoking a long pipe. Behind him, a white dealer reclines, apathetically watching the events in front of him. On the left, slaves are whipped and loaded onto ships. A white slaver stands in the forefront with his back to the viewer, holding a device for restraining slaves.
- Nathaniel Currier (1813-1888) was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and after serving an apprenticeship in Boston, he moved to New York City in 1834. In New York, he briefly partnered with Adam Stodart, but their firm dissolved within a year, and Currier went into business on his own until 1857. James M. Ives (1824-1895) was a native New York lithographer who was hired as a bookkeeper by Currier in 1852. In 1857, the two men partnered, forming the famous lithography firm of Currier and Ives, which continued under their sons until 1907.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Credit Line
- Harry T. Peters "America on Stone" Lithography Collection
- after 1863
- ID Number
- DL.60.2618
- catalog number
- 60.2618
- accession number
- 228146
- Object Name
- Lithograph
- Object Type
- Lithograph
- Physical Description
- paper (overall material)
- ink (overall material)
- Measurements
- image: 17 in x 23 5/8 in; 43.18 cm x 60.0075 cm
- place made
- United States: New York, New York City
- See more items in
- Home and Community Life: Domestic Life
- American Civil War Prints
- Art
- Domestic Furnishings
- National Museum of American History
- Subject
- Costume
- Reform Movements
- Blacks
- referenced
- Civil War
- Subject
- Slavery
- related event
- Civil War
- Record ID
- nmah_473143
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746b5-0fb0-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa
