Art Institute of ChicagoPublic domain

The Captive Slave (Ira Aldridge)

John Philip Simpson · 1827

Provenance

Ownership history

Private collection, United Kingdom, after 1827 [this and the following according to Postle 2009]. Sold James Adam and Sons, Ltd., Dublin, November 6, 1996, lot no. 164, to a private collector; private collection, Surrey, United Kingdom, 1996 [according to email correspondence of May 26, 2016, between Ben Elwes and Gloria Groom; copy in curatorial file]; sold to Ben Elwes Fine Art, London; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2008.

Recorded by Art Institute of Chicago.

Exhibitions

Exhibition history

London, Royal Academy of Arts, 1827, no. 283.
London, British Institution, 1828, no. 136.
Liverpool, Liverpool Academy, 1828, no. 95.
Winter Park, The Cornell Fine Arts Museum, The Black Figure in the European Imaginary, Jan. 20 - Mar. 15, 2017.
New York, Wallach Art Gallery, Posing Modernity: The Black Model from Manet to Matisse, Oct. 24, 2018-Feb. 10, 2019; Paris, Musée d'Orsay, Le Modéle Noir [The Black Model], Mar. 25 - July 14 2019, cat. 99; Guadeloupe, Mémorial ACTe, Sep. 13-Dec. 29, 2019 [Paris only].
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Afro-Atlantic Histories, Oct. 24, 2021-Jan. 17, 2022, cat. 26; Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art, Apr. 10-July 17, 2022; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Nov. 1, 2022-Apr. 30, 2023; Dallas Museum of Art, Oct. 2023-Jan. 2024. [Houston and Washington only].

Literature

Published references

"Fine Arts: Royal Academy," The Examiner (July 15, 1827).
"Fine Arts: British Institution," The Atlas 3, 94 (March 2, 1828): 140.
The London Magazine (April 1828): 28, no. 136.
Algernon Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their Work from its Foundation in 1769 to 1904, vol. 7 (London: Henry Graves, 1906), 131, no. 283.
"The Story of Art Retold: New Acquisitions at the Art Institute of Chicago," Apollo (October 2008): 49 (ill.).
Martin Postle, "The Captive Slave by John Simpson (1782-1847): A rediscovered masterpiece", British Art Journal 9, 3 (Spring 2009): 18-26.
Bernth Lindfors, Ira Aldridge: The Early Years, 1807-1833 (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2011), 109.
Childs, Adrienne L., Susan H. Libby, The Black Figure in the the European Imaginary, exh. cat. (Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida/GILES, 2017), 18-19, fig. 4; 20, 55 (color pl.).
Marc Vitali, "New Play Looks at Life of Trailblazing African-American Actor," WTTW: Chicago Tonight, December 11, 2017, ill.
Des Cars, Laurence, et. al. Le Modéle Noir [The Black Model], exh. cat. (Paris: Musée d' Orsay/Flammarion, 2019), 138-41 cat. 99, 357.
Farah Peterson, "On Our Knees: What the history of a gesture can tell us about Black creative power," American Scholar, September 7, 2021 <a href="https://theamericanscholar.org/on-our-knees/">https://theamericanscholar.org/on-our-knees/</a>
Adriano Pedrosa and Tomas Toledo, eds., Afto-Atlantic Histories, exh. cat. (New York: Del Monaco Books, 2021), 88 fig. 26.

Comparables