Slave Markets

"The Aurut Bazaar or Slave Market" by Thomas Allom
From Thomas Allom's "Constantinople and the Scenery of Seven Churches of Asia", 1838 with text by Dr Robert Walsh, the chaplain to the British embassy in Constantinople. [more...]

"Slave Merchant, Constantinople" by Hullmandel / Allom
An engraving by Hullmandel, from Thomas Allom's painting or drawing, showing a slave merchant in Constantinople. Used in Emily Reeve's "Character and Costume in Turkey and Italy" published in 1840.

"Examining Slaves" by Ettore Cercone, 1890

"The Hhareem" by J.F. Lewis (c.1850)
This painting is most commonly entitled "The Hhareem" (with that unusual spelling) but the title "The Harem of a Mameluke Bey, Cairo: The Introduction of an Abyssinian Slave" was used when it was exhibited in the Royal Scottish Academy exhibition of 1853. [more...]

"Slave Market", Cairo, 1878
From G. Ebers' "Pictureseque Egypt Vol II" (1878), which has the following description of the market: "I must mention, as one of the ex-Kedive's best actions, the abolition of the slave trade, which was flourishing in Egypt only a short time since. Very few years have gone by since I myself was one of those who saw the court of an okella well supplied with the human commodity. I am only too glad to leave it to the artist to give a picture of the tragical scene, of which he was a spectator even before I myself was. [more...]

"The Greek Slave", Hiram Powers, 1844
In its day, "The Greek Slave" was one of the most famous Orientalist works of art in the world. In 1847-48 it was taken on a tour of North America and in 1851 had pride of place in the United States' contribution to the Great Exhibition in London. [more...]

"Inspecting the New Arrivals" by Giulio Rosati

"Selling slaves in Cairo" by Gerome (1871)

"Selling slaves in Cairo" by J.L. Gerome

Slave sale from "Turkish Tyranny"
From a German woodcut of 1593, the sale of captured Christians as slaves. The prisoners are led in a coffle, before being stripped naked, examined, put through their paces under the whips of drivers, and then paid for. [more...]

Turkish slave market
This is a German woodcut from about 1532, showing a sale of European slaves by Turkish invaders. In this period, the Ottoman Turks occupied much of south eastern Europe, and had laid siege to Vienna in 1529. Their practice was to take slaves from the non-Muslim occupants of conquered territories, and the woodcut shows a sale or sharing out of slaves by armed Turkish soldiers. The slaves are naked, put through their paces by drivers with whips, before being placed in iron shackles like those held by the figure on the bottom left. [more...]

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