The National Gallery has published a report that links “a significant part of its collection”, and some of its most famous donors, artists and paintings to the Atlantic slave trade, said Craig Simpson in The Daily Telegraph.
Begun in 2018, the study covers the period from the institution’s founding in 1824 to 1880. It reveals that several important bequests to the gallery in its early years were made by those who derived their fortunes in part from slavery. John Julius Angerstein, whose sale of 38 paintings to the British government in 1824 provided the core of the National Gallery’s early collection, made “part of his fortune in insurance for slave ships”; Constable’s The Hay Wain was donated by a man who inherited slavery-derived wealth.
Yet the report also names figures whose links to the slave trade are merely “incidental”, and who had no “direct connection” to it, such as Thomas Gainsborough, because he painted several portraits of people who owned West Indian estates; and William Wordsworth, because his sister’s rented cottage was leased by a slave owner.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The approach provoked some criticism. “Casting the historic slavery net as wide as this ensures that hardly anyone can be free of some links,” remarked Dr Zareer Masani, a historian of the British empire.
Other specialists complained that the report didn’t go nearly far enough, said Nadia Khomami in The Guardian. “Acknowledgment is a very fine thing but it is not a reparation for that crime,” commented Hakim Adi, professor of the history of Africa and the African diaspora. “Indeed, I see no mention that the National Gallery is planning to do anything as a result of this research.”
A spokesperson clarified that any painting’s connection to the slave trade would be made explicit on an accompanying picture caption, to allow visitors to “determine for themselves the nature and extent of these connections”. However, the museum will not remove any picture from display on account of its association with slavery. Further instalments of the study are to follow, tracing the origins of the gallery’s collection from 1640 to 1920.
24 November 2021: A spokesperson for the National Gallery said its labels “already mark clearly where paintings are associated with slavery and have done for a number of years, so we will not be updating any labels based on this research”.
-
October 13 editorial cartoonsCartoons Monday's political cartoons include Donald Trump's consolation prize, government workers during shutdown, and more
-
Can Gaza momentum help end the war in Ukraine?Today's Big Question Zelenskyy’s request for long-range Tomahawk missiles hints at ‘warming relations’ between Ukraine and US
-
The Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners being releasedThe Explainer Triumphant Donald Trump addresses the Israeli parliament as families on both sides of the Gaza war reunite with their loved ones
-
The delightful, smutty world of Jilly CooperIn the Spotlight Millions mourn the ‘Mrs Kipling of sex’
-
Lee Miller at the Tate: a ‘sexy yet devastating’ showThe Week Recommends The ‘revelatory’ exhibition tells the photographer’s story ‘through her own impeccable eye’
-
6 eye-catching rounded homesFeature Featuring a central spiral staircase in Michigan and a Balinese-style estate with ocean views in Hawaii
-
A House of Dynamite: a ‘nail-biting’ nuclear-strike thrillerThe Week Recommends ‘Virtuoso talent’ Kathryn Bigelow directs a ‘fast-paced’ and ‘tense’ ‘symphony of dread’
-
The Finest Hotel in Kabul: a ‘haunting’ history of modern AfghanistanThe Week Recommends Lyse Doucet’s sensitively written work traces over 50 years of Kabul’s ‘Inter-Con’ hotel
-
The Smashing Machine: Dwayne Johnson is ‘magnetic’ in gritty biopicThe Week Recommends The wrestler-turned-Hollywood-actor takes on the role of troubled UFC champion Mark Kerr
-
Shadow Ticket: Thomas Pynchon’s first novel in over a decadeThe Week Recommends Zany whodunnit about a private eye in 1930s Milwaukee could be the 88-year-old author’s ‘last hurrah’
-
Southern barbecue: This year’s top threeFeature A weekend-only restaurant, a 90-year-old pitmaster, and more
