Slavery abolition debates may have inspired paintings
Student’s theory on origins of three Smith portraits
Three portraits of Black men by Victorian Stirling artist Thomas Stuart Smith were painted as debate raged over the abolition of slavery.
Research into the paintings - which all hang in the city museum and art gallery bearing his name – points out that the abolition of slavery was “a hugely debated and understood issue” in the city in the mid-nineteenth century.
Edinburgh University Masters student Laura Baliman, who last year undertook an internship with the Dumbarton Road art galley and museum Smith founded, looked at the artist’s The Pipe of Freedom, A Fellah of Kinneh, and A Cuban Cigarette.
Considered to be among the most significant portraits of Black men in Victorian Britain, they were all painted in 1869 following the American Civil War (1861-1865).
Laura said the research sought “to recognise their position within the canon of Black Victorian portraiture, and within the recent upheaval of racial justice issues in the UK and Scotland.”
She pointed out that 19th century US anti-slavery campaigners had visited Stirling to promote the cause, including ex-slave William Craft from
Georgia, who fled the US in 1850.
Churches in the city also held debates on the abolition of slavery – and that “it is likely that Thomas Stuart Smith was aware of these discussions, as he often attended lectures in his local area.”
Laura commented: “Abolition was a hugely debated and understood issue [in Stirling].
“Archives show a great number of lectures and discussions of the American situation, mostly in local churches such as the Free North Church and Erskine UP Church, and the School of Arts.
“Guest lecturers, including exenslaved people such as William Craft, interacted with locals in nuanced discussion.
“For example, an 1866 report on the United States by Stirling MP Laurence Oliphant notes that abolition will not solve all the problems facing African Americans, who will ‘not be allowed to buy or rent land’ and who are now ‘between the upper and the nether millstone’.
“Furthermore, in a lecture in the Union Hall in September 1864 by Rev Anderson of New York, an understanding is shown of Britain’s role in American slavery: ‘by our immense and constantly increasing demand for slave-grown cotton we had been practically the parties on whom American slavery depended on for its very existence.’”
The Pipe of Freedom had been rejected by the Royal Academy for the summer exhibition in 1869 and instead hung in a Select Supplementary Exhibition in London.
Laura describes this portrait as “the most vital” of Smith’s trio of paintings. Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of January 1863 – stating ‘that all persons held as slaves’ within the rebellious states ‘are, and henceforward shall be free’ – is depicted on a wall above the freed slave, covering a poster publicising the sale of slaves.
Laura continued: “Smith claims that [the painting’s] rejection was based on political grounds, and although there is no evidence for this, there were indeed a growing number of alternate gallery spaces at this time.
“In [The Pipe of Freedom], the model sits before the Emancipation Proclamation, lighting a pipe.
“There is a possible significance in this act of lighting, as other pipes in the Royal Academy collection are already lit.
“As a symbol of ignition, the lighting of the pipe depicts the burning of tobacco — a huge product of slavery in the US.
“In terms of the model, it is unlikely that Smith visited the US or Africa, and he also noted in a letter (first transcribed in 1881) that he altered the complexion of the sitter to look partially Native American.
“This lack of specificity (intentionally or unintentionally) speaks to the loss of cultural history and familial connections of enslaved peoples who were torn from their lands and belongings.”
Thomas Stuart Smith had taken possession of the Glassingall Estate, Dunblane, in 1857 following the death of its owner, his uncle Alexander Smith.
But he sold it in 1863 and moved to London, setting up his own art collection including his own paintings.
Smith also decided to create an institute in Stirling to house the collection and drew up plans for a library, museum and reading room.
He did not live to see it realised. The Smith Institute was however founded through a bequest and opened its doors in 1874 five years after his death.
Laura said: “It is not immediately evident that Thomas Stuart Smith had any direct links to slavery, his artistic exploits being funded in the most part by his banker uncle Alexander Smith.
“However, his father’s (Thomas Smith) history is somewhat murkier: he worked as a secretary and accountant of the Canada Company, and was thus deeply involved in the colonisation of Canada. Furthermore, we know he was a merchant in Cuba, where slavery boomed in the years of his presence, in line with huge sugarcane exports.
“Although Smith the younger lost the letters from his father that could detail his exact involvement, it is important to be aware of these possible ties.
‘It is also important to note, as [writer and curator] Jan Marsh outlines in her exhibition catalogue Black Victorians (2005), that the expanding art world and market that Smith was greatly involved in owed a lot to British prosperity at the time, which benefited largely from the transatlantic slave trade, despite slavery’s abolition in Britain in 1833.”