Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On)
Joseph Mallord William Turner (English, 1775–1851)
90.8 x 122.6 cm (35 3/4 x 48 1/4 in.)
Medium or Technique
Oil on canvas
Not On View
When Turner exhibited this picture at the Royal Academy in 1840 he paired it with the following extract from his unfinished and unpublished poem “Fallacies of Hope” (1812):
“Aloft all hands, strike the top-masts and belay;
Yon angry setting sun and fierce-edged clouds
Declare the Typhon’s coming.
Before it sweeps your decks, throw overboard
The dead and dying - ne’er heed their chains
Hope, Hope, fallacious Hope!
Where is thy market now?”