The Slave Market (Gérôme painting)
The Slave Market (French: Le Marché d'esclaves) is an 1866 painting by the French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme. It shows a man inspecting the teeth of a nude, female Caucasian slave. The painting has a Middle-Eastern or North-African setting. The context of this is likely the Barbary slave trade.
| The Slave Market | |
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| Artist | Jean-Léon Gérôme |
| Year | 1866 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 84.6 cm × 63.3 cm (33.3 in × 24.9 in) |
| Location | Clark Art Institute, Williamstown |
Adolphe Goupil bought the painting on 23 August 1866. He exhibitedit at the Salon in 1867. It was bought and sold several times until Robert Sterling Clark bought it in 1930. Since 1955 it is part of the Clark Art Institute's collection.[1]
Along with Gérôme's The Snake Charmer, The Slave Market has become an iconic example of 19th-century orientalist art.[1]
Race, gender, and sexuality
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In an art historical context, Harem scenes usually show domestic spaces for the women in the Muslim societies. Males are only included if there isa an association with sexual relations or to show barbary. This painting has an unspecific Middle Eastern or North African setting in which a man inspects the teeth of a nude Caucasian[2] female slave.
Before he did this painting, Gerome also did some picture about slave trading. Some of these scenes are set in the Classical world. He painted a very similar scene in 1857, Buying a Slave, set in the ancient Greek or Roman world. In that painting, racial differences between buyer, seller, and slave are not as apparent.[1] The slaves depicted sometimes vary in skin color (as in The Slave Market of 1871); in all cases a woman or women are for sale, with men as buyers or sellers, but in the background of The Slave Market buyers can be seen inspecting a nude, dark-skinned male, and in the background of Slave Market in Ancient Rome (c. 1884) two enslaved males, one black and one white, can be seen.
A depiction by Gérôme of a slave in another context is Cave Canem (1881). In ancient Rome, a chained and collared man sits under the notice "Cave Canem," Latin for "Beware the Dog."
Gallery: Gérôme's depictions of slaves and slave markets
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Detail from The Slave Market (1866) showing an enslaved dark-skinned male -
Greek Slave (1870), an unfinished (due to theft) painting, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston -
The Slave Market (1871), Cincinnati Art Museum -
Cave Canem, 1881, Musée Georges-Garret -
Studies for Slave Market in Ancient Rome (above) and A Roman Slave Market (below), Walters Art Museum -
Study for Slave Market in Ancient Rome, graphite and black crayon (c. 1884), Walters Art Museum -
Study for Slave Market in Ancient Rome, oil on canvas, Musée Georges-Garret -
Slave Market in Ancient Rome (c. 1884), Hermitage Museum -
A Roman Slave Market (c. 1884), Walters Art Museum
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References
change- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Lees, Sarah, ed. (2012). Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute (excerpt: "The Slave Market") (PDF). pp. 359–363.
- ↑ Davis, Professor Robert (2003). Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500–1800. Ohio USA: Pangrave MacMillan. ISBN 978-0-333-71966-4.
Other websites
change- The Slave Market Archived 2016-05-22 at the Wayback Machine at the Clark Art Institute's website
- Jean-Léon Gérôme: Slave Market by Sarah Lees from Nineteenth-century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, pp. 359–363.
Media related to The Slave Market (Gérôme) at Wikimedia Commons
