Sir William Blake Richmond

The Slave

c.1886

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

License this image

Not on display

Artist: Sir William Blake Richmond 1842–1921
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Unconfirmed: 914 × 527 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Presented by the artist's descendants 1995
Reference: T06966

Display caption

The meaning and source of this painting of an enslaved woman and her child are obscure. It may relate to French Orientalist paintings of captive women, a subject perhaps inspired by William Richmond’s visit to the Middle East in 1885. Slavery also became a popular subject in the 1880s for British painters as increasing numbers of them chose to study art in France. The outbreak of a number of moral panics in the 1880s, focusing on the victimisation of women and children by abusive men, also gave this type of painting contemporary significance.

Gallery label, July 2007

Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.

Explore

interiors(4,631)
- domestic(1,815)
- - interior - non-specific(844)
objects(23,371)
- agriculture, gardening & fishing(954)
- - straw(8)
people(35,158)
- actions: expressive(2,631)
- - embracing(425)
- actions: postures and motions(9,101)
- - standing(3,131)
- adults(22,747)
- - woman(9,064)
- children(3,396)
- - baby(526)
  - child(1,324)
- ethnicity(4,563)
- - Middle Eastern(144)
- nudes(2,564)
- - figure(200)
society(34,954)
- family(4,136)
- - mother and child(398)
- social comment(6,603)
- - slavery(54)

You might like

Frank Holl Hush!

1877
Frank Holl Hushed

1877
George Frederic Watts Death Crowning Innocence

1886–7
Solomon J. Solomon A Family Group: The Artist’s Wife and Children: ‘Papa Painting!’

1905
James Clarke Hook Home with the Tide

1880
John Singer Sargent Ena and Betty, Daughters of Asher and Mrs Wertheimer

1901

On display at Tate Britain part of Spotlights
Frederick Goodall The Ploughman and the Shepherdess: Time of the Evening Prayer

1897
Sir William Quiller Orchardson The First Cloud

1887
George Frederic Watts Time, Death and Judgement

1900
Henry Tanworth Wells Victoria Regina

1880
Philip Wilson Steer Mrs Cyprian Williams and her Two Little Girls

1891

On display at Tate Britain part of Walk Through British Art
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid

1884

On display at Tate Britain part of Walk Through British Art
Frederic, Lord Leighton And the Sea Gave Up the Dead Which Were in It

exhibited 1892

On display at Tate Britain part of Walk Through British Art
Philip Wilson Steer Sleep

exhibited 1898
Sir John Everett Millais, Bt Mercy: St Bartholomew’s Day, 1572

1886

In the shop

Browse the shop