The Captive Slave by John Simpson (1782-1847): a rediscovered masterpiece.
British Art Journal › Vol. 9 Nbr. 3, March 2009
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The Captive Slave by John Simpson (1782-1847): a rediscovered masterpiece.
Earlier this year, The Art Institute of Chicago acquired a virtually unknown painting by a little-known British portrait- and genre-painter, John Philip Simpson (1782-1847), which had not been exhibited in public for some 180 years) Hitherto, Simpson's modest claim to fame has been as a minor society portrait-painter and studio assistant to Sir Thomas Lawrence. The present work, however, uncovers another aspect of Simpson, one which reveals him to be an artist endowed with tremendous technical skills and an innate sensibility. The Captive Slave (Pl 1), painted in the mid-1820s, depicts a young black man manacled to a bench, framed against a stark brownish grey background. He wears a loose red-orange shirt and trousers, the clothing, we can assume, of a prisoner. His large hands rest limply upon his thighs, his head is raised in an attitude of sorrow and supplication. As the title of the painting indicates he is held in a state of double bondage, in his abiding condition as a slave one who is in servitude as the property of another--and as a captive, within the immediate confines of a prison cell. Indeed, it is an image, as will be discussed, which carries a particular resonance within the context of the anti-slavery movement of the period. Recent scientific analysis of the painting carried out by The Art Institute of Chicago, including X-ray photography (Pl 2), has revealed that Simpson composed The Captive Slave upon a used canvas, upon which had been painted previously a rather crude outline image of a stately home (Belton House, Lincolnshire), and also the beginnings of another unrelated figure, which may have been a portrait. (2) It is not known why Simpson decided to paint The Captive Slave, although the fact that he painted it upon a discarded canvas suggests that he made it on impulse, and of his own volition, rather than as a commissioned work. Indeed, given, what D...
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