| CREATOR(S) | American
| | TITLE | Slave Market | | DATE | c. 1850-1860 | | MEDIUM | oil on canvas | | MEASUREMENTS | H: 29 3/4 x W: 39 1/2 inches (H: 76 x W: 100 cm) | | CREDIT | Gift of Mrs. W. Fitch Ingersoll | | ACCESSION NUMBER | 58.4 | | LOCATION | Gallery 3 | | DESCRIPTION | | Slave Market was painted just before the Civil War as controversy about slavery reached a peak. The artist expresses the anti-slavery view, condemning the trade in human beings as cruel and immoral. Two tragedies in the making are depicted here. In the center, a young woman has been taken away from the man she loves and sold to a dissolute planter; to the left, two traders brutally separate a mother and child in a tableau that evokes the biblical Massacre of the Innocents. This depiction of traders and buyers as violent, predatory, and immoral scoundrels supports the abolitionist view of the slave trade as degrading to all. |
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Image © 2006 Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
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