Yale University Art Gallery

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Anti-Slavery Tokens

The Yale University Art Gallery holds numerous bronze and copper tokens related to slavery and abolition, including this one, which was manufactured in the United States and issued by the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1838.

Tags: Antislavery Movements, Material Culture, Nineteenth Century

Emancipation of the Slaves

Part of a series of watercolor images entitled “Emancipation of the Slaves,” produced during the Civil War era in the United States. The Yale University Art Gallery owns a corresponding image from the same series.

Tags: Drawings and Images, Emancipation, Nineteenth Century, United States

Emancipation Proclamation

The Yale University Art Gallery owns several different versions of the Emancipation Proclamation, issued in different shapes and sizes and utilizing different visual techniques. Most of these posters date from the period of the Civil War, although this elaborate color lithograph was produced in 1890.

Tags: Emancipation, Nineteenth Century, Printed Material, United States

Ross Archive of African Images

RAAI aspires to reproduce all the illustrations of figurative African objects published between 1800 and 1920 in books, periodicals, catalogues, newspapers, and other publications. It does not include postcards or pamphlets of very limited distribution. More than 95% of the material is contained in the James J. Ross library, the remainder has been recorded from copies in other libraries. Many of the items pertain in some way to slavery or its legacies.

Tags: Africa, Drawings and Images, Material Culture, Nineteenth Century, Religion, Twentieth Century

The Greek Slave

The Greek Slave, by Hiram Powers, was the single most celebrated work of sculpture in nineteenth-century America. Its pose—inspired by the well-known Medici Venus—represents a Christian girl captured by the Turks during the Greek War of Independence, for sale in the slave market of Constantinople. The statue inspired an outpouring of prose and poetry and became an anti-slavery symbol for abolitionists.

Tags: Antislavery Movements, Atlantic World, Material Culture, Nineteenth Century, Slavery, United States

The Yale Guy van Rijn Archive of African Art

The Yale-van Rijn Photographic Archive comprises images of art from Africa south of the Sahara in collections worldwide. Currently there are more than 100,000 images of African art drawn from private and museum collections, dealers, general archives, and the existing body of literature including books, articles, notices, and auction catalogues. The archive may be useful for researchers interested in the impact of slavery on African culture or the evolution of African culture in the Americas. It is available for general research by appointment only.

Tags: Africa, Material Culture, Religion