Black People in European Sculpture Project

11 (05/01/2022)

The Bust Figurehead of George III from the Royal Yacht 'Royal George'

The 1817 figurehead from HMY 'Royal George', the Royal Yacht commissioned during the reign of King George III of Great Britain. The central figure shows King George III, in the guise of a victorious Roman emperor crowned with a laurel wreath, flanked by two subservient African men, emerging from acanthus leaves. The African figures are naked except for a loin cloth, and are depicted with raised heads and clasped hands.

Statue: Group (multiple figures)

No base

Height: 193 cm

Width: 91.4 cm

Depth: 101.6 cm

Wood (unidentified)

Carving

Gilding

Monochrome – gold

Anonymous: generic/idealised type

Key subsidiary role

Male

Adult

Uncertain

Partially clothed

None

None

Begging/pleading

Hopeful

Looking upwards

No location included/implied

Nineteenth century (1800-1899)

1817

Recorded in related documentation

Decorative

Didactic / Propagandistic

Outside: ship figurehead

FHD0099

1817: commissioned for King George III of Great Britain by the British Government as the figurehead for the 'Royal George', the Royal Yacht of the Royal Navy.

1817-1842: used as part of Royal Yacht until decommissioned by Queen Victoria of Great Britain

1902-1905: used as part of an accommodation hulk

1905: scrapped and broken up with figurehead preserved

after 1905: acquisition of figurehead by the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, as part of the Royal United Service Institution Collection

The figurehead was almost certainly made to celebrate Britain's ultimate victory over the French in the long Napoleonic Wars, given that the Royal Yacht was launched in 1817, two years of the final defeat of France at the Battle of Waterloo.
The status and purpose of the two attending African figures are unclear. While they may represent vanquished foes begging for mercy from the victor, it is more likely that they are ‘supporters’ in the heraldic sense, with their supplicant pose designed further to elevate the monarch’s regal status.
The stance of the African men has drawn obvious comparison with the famous kneeling figure on Wedgwood’s anti-slavery plague, which was produced in the late 1780s with the motto ‘Am I not a man and a brother?’ This powerful and highly adaptable piece of abolitionist propaganda became the symbol of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade. The yacht was launched a decade after parliamentary legislation abolished the British slave trade in 1807. It is tempting to suppose that the imagery of the figurehead might allude to the abolition campaign or be a commentary on the fact that the British trade ended during George III’s reign. But it is very unlikely indeed that such an overt political statement, seemingly a direct alignment of the monarch with the abolitionist cause, would be incorporated into the iconography of a royal yacht. Moreover, although the figures kneel in a similar imploring gesture, they are not a direct copy of the Wedgwood design, where the beseeching African is clearly enslaved and bound in chains. However, given their immediate proximity to the king, it would be perfectly appropriate for any figure – human, animal or mythological – to be depicted in a deferential stance. It is, therefore, a distinct probability that any resemblance to the abolitionist emblem is coincidental. All of this makes the celebration of national victory a far more plausible interpretation.