Neptune

Adam Lenckhart, German, 1610-1661

Neptune, mid-17th century

Adam Lenckhart was a German ivory carver an official sculptor of the royal court in Vienna. In this piece Neptune is shown calming the stormy sea, represented by the wild-eyed dolphin. Lenckhart was practicing during the first century of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. European envoys looted and stole people for enslavement but also resources such as sugar, rum, and ivory. Lenckhart was presumably receiving his material that he sculpted hundreds of pieces with on boats that also carried enslaved people. Ivory is the bone of an elephant’s tusk and was harvested in the masses for its malleability and superior carving texture. This put a high demand on the bone of an already diminishing species, and created a market where many people and animals were exploited for artistic gain. Label by Isabel Schreur

Felling Mahogany in Honduras

J. McGahey, British

Felling Mahogany in Honduras, 1850

Not much is known about artist J. McGahey, other than he was a British printmaker who typically engraved topographical plates of London. This print depicts the direct process of sourcing the mahogany used in colonial furniture making, particularly the human lives that were actually implicated in its collection. While much of the harvesting and trade of mahogany disappeared in the narrative of the works of art it created, this image shows the material from the source, and acknowledges its direct connection to slavery. However, despite that fact that it does not overtly attempt to erase the presence of enslavement in the Caribbean mahogany trade, this print still depicts a very curated image of what is possibly a plantation; the men in the photo seem determined while one of them relaxes on the ground next to the fallen tree, which seems to have had no impact on the surrounding environment, and bear no trace of critique to the labor taking place. Label by Molly McCarthy Flood

Mount Adams Washington

Albert Bierstadt, American, 1830-1902

Mount Adams Washington, 1875

Bierstadt was one of the foremost painters of the Luminist and later Hudson River school movement, and so his work here deals with exploitation on two fronts: The subject matter of western North America, and the paint used to encapsulate it. Many Luminists and later Hudson River school painters turned their attention away from the east coast of the U.S. to the western part of the continent as a source of inspiration, in turn inspiring Westward Expansion by the U.S.—the seizure of indigenous-held lands and the dispossession of indigenous people. In this piece, Native people are present, but they exist as little more than indicators of the scale and grandeur of the landscape they happen to occupy. The white paint used to highlight the mountain was made with the metal lead, a well-known toxic material for the health effects it had on the miners who extract it and the factory workers who would have made it into paint. It is no stretch of the imagination to believe that the production of this painting harmed several people, and after its completion it encouraged harm to many more. Label by Frank Kennedy

The Cultivation of Tobacco in Colonial America

American School (artist unknown), American

The Cultivation of Tobacco in Colonial America, 19th century

This piece depicts slave labor in the tobacco industry of colonial America and serves as a starting point for discussing the socioeconomic impact of said industry. John Rolfe is credited with bringing tobacco to the colonies via Virginia in 1612. While tobacco cultivation in the Chesapeake area was originally characterized by white planters working alongside enslaved black people, the wildly increasing demand for tobacco in the 18th century led to an enormous slave boom that deepened racial divide. The industry became extremely competitive and working conditions for enslaved people worsened. Racially motivated laws emerged that would eventually become Jim Crow laws. While white workers are depicted in the foreground, this engraving shows an undeniable division between them and the black enslaved people. Label by Laura Reitze