Brass tobacco box. N.p., [early 19th century]. 7 x 2 x 3 in. With engraving after "Execrable Human Traffic or the Affectionate Slaves" by George Morland.

This tobacco box, likely from the early 19th century, features an engraving after a 1788 painting by English abolitionist artist George Morland (1763 - 1804), titled "Execrable Human Traffic or the Affectionate Slaves." Hugh Honor avers that Morland's work was the first to depict a slave-trading scene (The Image of the Black in Western Art, 1989, pp. 181-9). In 1790, a mezzotint etching after the painting was produced by John Raphael Smith, under the title "The Slave Trade" (c.f. The British Museum, 1868,1212.48), and evidently inspired more artistic interpretations of the scene. 

The vignette depicts the cruel suffering caused by the Transatlantic Slave Trade. It shows a Black man being threatened with a whip and separated from his wife and child, who have just been sold to a captain. 

A unique piece for anyone interested in early abolitionist art. 

[African Americana, African American History, Black History, Slavery, Enslavement, Abolition, Emancipation] [Art, Folk Art, Military Art, Etching, Engraving, Lithographs, Prints, Ephemera]