Drawings and Images

1080 Chapel Street | Gallery Home | Hours

A Picturesque Tour of the Island of Jamaica

James Hakewill, A picturesque tour of the island of Jamaica, from drawings made in the years 1820 and 1821(London, 1825). The Yale Center for British Art also holds a number of original watercolors by Hakewill, which depict life in the British Caribbean prior to emancipation.

Tags: Caribbean, Drawings and Images, Nineteenth Century

A Turkish Lady Going with her Slave to the Bath

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

Tags: Drawings and Images, Eighteenth Century, Slavery

A View on the Island of Antigua

In 1771 Thomas Hearne began working for Sir Ralph Payne, the recently appointed Governor-General of the Leeward Islands, a group of sugar colonies consisting of Antigua, Nevis, St. Christopher’s (now St. Kitts), and Montserrat. Hearne spent three and a half years making working drawings and, after his return to England in 1775, produced twenty large and highly finished watercolors for Payne, of which only eight are now known.

Tags: Caribbean, Drawings and Images, Eighteenth Century, Slavery

Portrait of Elihu Yale

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.”

Tags: Drawings and Images, Eighteenth Century, Great Britain, Slavery

Protector of Slaves Office

Created by Richard Bridgens, circa 1833. Apparently meant to represent Trinidad on the eve of emancipation. Graphite on wove paper, with additional text at the bottom.

Tags: Drawings and Images, Emancipation, Great Britain, Nineteenth Century

Sketches of Character

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.

Tags: Caribbean, Drawings and Images, Emancipation, Nineteenth Century

Ten Views in the Island of Antigua

William Clark, Ten views in the island of Antigua: In which are represented the process of sugar making, and the employment of the Negroes, in the field, boiling-house and distillery (London, 1823). A rare view of the large-scale industrial and agricultural plantations of Antigua.

 
Tags: Caribbean, Drawings and Images, Nineteenth Century, Slavery

The Benevolent Effects of Abolishing Slavery

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.”

Tags: Drawings and Images, Eighteenth Century, Emancipation, Great Britain

The Drowning Slave

A rare line engraving, produced by Robert Brandard at some point in the first half of the nineteenth century. Based on an earlier image by George Cattermole.

Tags: Drawings and Images, Great Britain, Nineteenth Century, Slavery

The Slave Trade

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

Tags: Drawings and Images, Eighteenth Century, Great Britain, Slave Trade

West India Scenery

Richard Bridgens, West India scenery with illustrations of Negro character, the process of making sugar, &c. from sketches taken during a voyage to, and residence of seven years in, the island of Trinidad (London, 1836). Twenty-seven plates with accompanying text.

Tags: Caribbean, Drawings and Images, Nineteenth Century, Slavery

West Indian Scenery

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.

Tags: Caribbean, Drawings and Images, Nineteenth Century

West Indian Women of Color

Painted by the London-based Italian artist Agostino Brunias, circa 1780. The Yale Center for British Art holds numerous oil paintings and engravings by Brunias, all of which document life in the colonial West Indies, especially on the Island of Dominica in the Lesser Antilles.

Tags: Caribbean, Drawings and Images, Eighteenth Century

121 Wall Street | Library Home | Hours

Confederate States of America Collection

Correspondence and official documents originating from various CSA government departments and from individual Confederate states, 1861-65. Includes correspondence of Jefferson Davis, Confederate cabinet members and congressmen, and other officials, as well as official reports of Civil War battles and events, estimates of expenditures and appropriations, petitions, special orders, forms, passes, receipts, bonds, tax records, and other documents. The collection also includes designs for an alternate Confederate flag.

Tags: Drawings and Images, Manuscripts, Nineteenth Century, Racism, Slavery, United States

Robert Durand's Journal

Holograph journal of a voyage to Martinique of the three-masted ship Le Diligent. Probably not an official log, the journal was written by First Lieutenant Robert Durand and describes in detail a voyage from Vannes, France, to the coast of Guinea, each slave trade port encountered on the coast, purchase of 256 slaves at Jacquin, voyage to Martinique, selling of the slaves at St. Pierre, and return to Vannes. Also described are conditions of trade in the African and Caribbean ports, dealings between slave traders and kings and chiefs, prices of provisions, competition among slave traders, effects of climate and disease, and expenses and revenues of the voyage.

Tags: Africa, Atlantic World, Drawings and Images, Eighteenth Century, Manuscripts, Slave Trade

Sketches of the Amistad Captives

New Haven resident William H. Townsend made pen-and-ink sketches of the Amistad captives while they were awaiting trial. Twenty-two of these drawings were given to Yale in 1934 by Asa G. Dickerman, whose grandmother was the artist’s cousin. Townsend, who was about 18 years old when he made the drawings, is buried in the Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut, beside the Yale University campus.

Tags: Africa, Atlantic World, Drawings and Images, Nineteenth Century, United States

1111 Chapel Street | Gallery Home | Hours

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

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

154 Main Street | Library Home | Hours

Slavery Prints and Cartoons

The Walpole Library is home to numerous eighteenth-century cartoons and prints pertaining to slavery and the slave trade. Of particular interest are a series of images depicting the lives of enslaved blacks and slaveholders in the Caribbean as well as cartoons illustrating the politics of slavery and freedom in Europe.

Tags: Caribbean, Drawings and Images, Eighteenth Century, Great Britain, Slavery

Thomas Thistlewood Papers

The papers consist of diaries, weather journals, commonplace books, reading notes and other material documenting the life, work, and intellectual interests of the Jamaican planter and slaveowner Thomas Thistlewood. Thistlewood’s 37 diaries, in Series I, contain daily entries dating between 1750 and 1786. Topics include Thistlewood’s work as an overseer, and later owner, of slaves, including his methods of assigning work, alloting provisions, and discipline; his personal and sexual relationships with several, including his lengthy relationship with Phibbah; and slave rebellions and rumors of rebellions, including Tacky’s Revolt (1760).

Tags: Caribbean, Drawings and Images, Eighteenth Century, Manuscripts, Nineteenth Century, Slavery

Yale Map Collection

The Yale Map Collection has the largest collection of maps in Connecticut and one of the largest university collections in the United States. Its collections are geographically comprehensive and consist of over 200,000 map sheets, 3,000 atlases, and 900 reference books. There are several maps and atlases with an explicit focus on slavery, including Lewis’ Free Soil, Slavery, and Territorial Map of the United States, “Gulag Slavery” maps of Russia, and theAtlas of Antebellum Southern Agriculture. 

Tags: Drawings and Images, Printed Material, Slavery