Black People in European Sculpture Project

78 (21/01/2022)

The Nubian Slave

A female figure sculpted from white marble with long hair, naked except for turban, headdress, hoop earrings, necklace, bracelet on left arm and diaphanous robe draped over right thigh, seated on a stool covered by a rush mat, eyes and head downcast.

The circular ornamental stone plinth includes four relief panels depicting: a slave market; transport on board a ship; a harem; and the purchase of an enslaved woman by a man in European dress. These panels refer to the East African slave trade which was still in existence at the time this figure was sculpted.

Statue: Full-length figure (single)

Relief panel

Base present - appears to be the original base

Height: 161.3 cm

Width: 76 cm

Depth: ? cm

Marble – white

Carving

Monochrome – white

Anonymous: generic/idealised type

Main protagonist

Female

Adult

Enslaved

Naked

None

‘Exotic’ costume/dress

Earrings (often a single pearl)

Sitting

Sad/tearful/mournful

Looking downwards

Indeterminate

Nineteenth century (1800-1899)

c. 1860

Recorded in related documentation

Decorative

Didactic / Propagandistic

Unknown

S.43.a

1881: bequeathed to Glasgow Museums by William Colvin

Further description of relief panels: 1. a slave market in which one turbaned man lifts drapery to reveal the naked figure of an enslaved woman, two other woman seated close by, a palm tree seen through a stone archway; 2. four enslaved women are transported on board a ship, watched over by a turbaned overseer, the sails of the boat are furled, a man strains on an oar; 3. five naked turbaned women in a harem, with curtains, cushions, water jar and a balcony; 4. a turbaned, bearded, clothed man in the harem accepts money from a man in European dress, a near naked female figure leans on him, two others sit nearby, one veiled.

Nubia is in what is now known as Northern Sudan and Southern Egypt. Despite the figure being meant to represent a Nubian woman, her facial features are essentially European.

On long-term loan to Kibble Palace, Glasgow Botanic Gardens

In 1858, working in Rome, Antonio Rosetti produced in life size, Esmeralda, the gypsy girl in the novel “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”, teaching her goat to read. This was on a revolving plinth with four panels depicting scenes from the book. Also, at the same time, in pair with this, A Nubian Slave, the height of the statue and the plinth being identical. The four panels on the base depicted scenes of slave trading.
These statues were acquired by the Murray Stewart family for Cally House at Gatehouse-of-Fleet, Kirkcudbright, presumably at this time.
An exact replica of The Nubian Slave was made by Rosetti a few years later and is now in the possession of the Corporation of the City of Glasgow in the Kibble Palace in the Botanic Gardens.’

This sculpture is an exact replica by Rossetti of his original work made in Rome in 1858, now in a private collection. It had a revolving plinth. Sold for £25,500 at Phillips, Oxford on 1 November 1985. It was one of a pair, the other Esmeralda (from The Hunchback of Notre Dame) teaching her goat to read, sold for £15,200 in July 1985.