The Slave Ship

The Slave Ship, originally titled Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhon Coming On, is an 1840 oil painting by the British artist J. M. W. Turner, first exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts and now held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. It depicts a ship visible in the background sailing through a tumultuous, churning sea, with scattered human forms left floating in its wake. Turner was possibly moved to paint the work after reading about the slave ship Zong in Thomas Clarkson's book on the history and abolition of the slave trade, and its first exhibition in 1840 coincided with international abolitionist campaigns. The painting is generally admired for its spectacular atmospheric effects, though critics have long disagreed about the relationship between its dramatic style and its grim subject matter. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/