Yale Center for British Art

Created by British painter Francis Smith, circa 1760. Oil on canvas.

A portrait of Elihu Yale (1649-1721) and associates being waited upon by an enslaved young man. Painted circa 1708. The Yale University Art Gallery owns a different version of this painting and a related portrait depicting Yale interacting with a similar “black servant.”

Published in Jamaica in 1837-38 by the Jewish Jamaican-born artist Isaac Mendes Belisario, Sketches of Character, In Illustration of the Habits, Occupation, and Costume of the Negro Population in the Island of Jamaica provides the first detailed visual representation of Jonkonnu (or John Canoe), the celebrated Afro-Jamaican masquerade performed by the enslaved during the Christmas and New Year holidays. These illustrations formed the centerpiece of an exhibition organized by the Yale Center for British Art: Art & Emancipation In Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds.

This print, made by W. Pyott in 1792, was based on C. F. von Breda’s 1789 painting, “Portrait of a Swedish Gentleman Instructing a Negro Prince.”

A Mezzotint, printed in color, by John Raphael Smith. Issued in 1791, this image was engraved “to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.”

Joseph Bartholomew Kidd, West Indian Scenery: Illustrations of Jamaica in a Series of Views Comprising the Principal Towns, Public Buildings, Estates and Most Picturesque Scenery of the Island (London & Kingston, 1840). An extremely rare collection of 50 colored plates, produced during the transition from apprenticeship to full emancipation.