Black People in European Sculpture Project

34 (11/01/2022)

Nubian Slave Girl

A white marble statuette depicting a kneeling young woman with her torso exposed and her waist wrapped with a fringed cloth. Her hands gesture towards a broken manacle and chain on the ground near her left knee. She is depicted wearing decorative jewelry and her lifted. Her intricately braided hair is wrapped in a turban.

Statuette

Base present - appears to be the original base

Height: 62 cm

Width: 32 cm

Depth: 32 cm

Marble – white

Carving

Monochrome – white

Back of base: 'A. Rossetti / P - Roma 1868'

Anonymous: generic/idealised type

Turban

Jewellery

Discarded manacle

Main protagonist

Female

Adult

Adolescent

Enslaved

Partially clothed

Wearing clothes – ‘exotic’ clothing

Manacles with/without chains

‘Exotic’ costume/dress

Earrings (often a single pearl)

Half-kneeling

Desperate

Anxious/fearful

Looking upwards

No location included/implied

Nineteenth century (1800-1899)

1868

Recorded in inscription

2018: £500

Decorative

Unknown

2017.193

This is a small-scale variation of Rossetti's 'The Nubian Slave', a copy of which can be found in the Kibble Palace, Glasgow Botanic Gardens.

Nubia is in present-day Northern Sudan and Southern Egypt. Despite the figure being meant to represent a Nubian woman, her facial features are essentially European.