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拍品專文
Intaglios of this subject in carved hardstone, such as the present example, are much rarer than versions of it in porcelain and paste. When the Quaker Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade met in 1787 three of its members were charged with preparing a design for a seal and, later that year, the image used on the present intaglio was selected. Unfortunately the original designer is unrecorded. Josiah Wedgwood the celebrated pottery manufacturer, who was actively involved from the Society's foundation till his death in 1795, produced, with the help of his modeller, William Hackwood, the image in the form of a black and white Jasper cameo medallion.
Such medallions were widely circulated in the Anti-Slavery movement and, by 1820, William Tassie's Descriptive catalogue of Devices and Mottos adapted for Seals and formed in Composition Paste included the subject as no. 116. They were set in snuff-boxes, hat-pins and bracelets and, as early as 1791, Thomas Clarkson, with Willam Wilberforce the principal promoter and historian of the early abolitionist movement, wrote "fashion, which usually confined itself to worthless things was seen for once in the honourable office of promoting the cause of justice, humanity and freedom".
Wedgwood sent a large number of cameos of the Anti-Slavery seal to Benjamin Franklin who was President of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery and who immediately realised the importance of the medallion in drawing the public's attention to the slavery issue. Franklin wrote to Wedgwood, on receiving the gift of these medallions in 1788, that " I am distributing your valuable present of cameos among my friends in whose countenances I have seen such marks of being affected by contemplating the figure of the Supplicant (which is admirably executed) that I am persuaded it may have an effect equal to that of the best written pamphlet in procuring honour to those oppressed people".
Such medallions were widely circulated in the Anti-Slavery movement and, by 1820, William Tassie's Descriptive catalogue of Devices and Mottos adapted for Seals and formed in Composition Paste included the subject as no. 116. They were set in snuff-boxes, hat-pins and bracelets and, as early as 1791, Thomas Clarkson, with Willam Wilberforce the principal promoter and historian of the early abolitionist movement, wrote "fashion, which usually confined itself to worthless things was seen for once in the honourable office of promoting the cause of justice, humanity and freedom".
Wedgwood sent a large number of cameos of the Anti-Slavery seal to Benjamin Franklin who was President of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery and who immediately realised the importance of the medallion in drawing the public's attention to the slavery issue. Franklin wrote to Wedgwood, on receiving the gift of these medallions in 1788, that " I am distributing your valuable present of cameos among my friends in whose countenances I have seen such marks of being affected by contemplating the figure of the Supplicant (which is admirably executed) that I am persuaded it may have an effect equal to that of the best written pamphlet in procuring honour to those oppressed people".