Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance review

Fitzwilliam Museum exhibition features lives affected by the Atlantic slave trade

Portrait of a Man in a Red Suit
Portrait of a Man in a Red Suit, c.1740–1780, artist unknown
(Image credit: Royal Albert Memorial Museum)

In recent years, we have begun to appreciate the extent to which Britain's wealth as a mercantile power was "predicated on the centuries-old rapacious plunder of millions of African people", said Colin Grant in The Guardian. Indeed, "charged traces" of slavery can be found throughout the land: "in fine art and botanical gardens, and in stately homes and museums". 

One such is Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum, founded in 1816 by Richard Fitzwilliam, whose fortune derived in part from the Atlantic slave trade. The museum's new exhibition is a "bold" attempt to tackle this legacy head-on, gathering together 120 objects with connections to slavery, from collections in Cambridge and beyond, including paintings, sculptures and artefacts. Highlights include "Portrait of an African Man" (c.1525-1530) by Jan Mostaert, thought to be the earliest portrait of a black person in European art, and an "elegant" English 18th century portrait of an unknown man. It's an "innovative" exhibition that explores how "racial enslavement became normalised" in northern Europe. Frans Post's bucolic "A Sugar Mill" (1650), for instance, renders a Dutch slave plantation "idyllic" and "harmonious". 

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