Zong

The blog needs a picture. I don't yet own a digital camera - that's next week's purchase. When I do, expect illustrations galore!

For the moment, Turner's Slave Ship (full title, 'Slavers throwing overboard the dead and dying - typhoon coming on') will have to suffice. I was discussing abolitionism the other day - my friend Josh is an expert - and it reminded me of Turner's astounding picture.

Painted in 1838, some five years after the landmark Slavery Abolition Act, the Slave Ship depicts the jettisoning of diseased and impaired slaves en route to the Americas. The intention, when docked, was for owners to claim the slaves' value on insurance - only redeemable for those 'lost at sea'.

The practice was made known following an inquiry into the actions of the captain aboard the slave ship Zong in 1781. (Incidentally, only civil charges were ever brought against the ship's Liverpool-based owners.) Public uproar surrounding the 'Zong massacre' was a catalyst to the early movement for the trade's abolition.

John Ruskin wrote: "If I were reduced to rest Turner's immortality upon any single work, I should choose this."

The paining hangs in Boston's Museum of Fine Art, a place I'll be visiting in a couple of weeks.