Yale Center for British Art

Creator:

Attributed to John Verelst, ca. 1675–1734, Dutch, active in Britain (by 1697)

formerly attributed to unknown artist, eighteenth century

Title:

Elihu Yale with Members of his Family and an Enslaved Child

Date:

ca. 1719

Materials & Techniques:

Oil on canvas

Dimensions:

79 1/4 × 92 3/4 inches (201.3 × 235.6 cm)

Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Credit Line:

Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Andrew Cavendish, eleventh Duke of Devonshire

Copyright Status:

Public Domain

Accession Number:

B1970.1

Classification:

Paintings

Collection:

Paintings and Sculpture

Subject Terms:

Currently On View:

Not on view

Exhibition History:

Figures of Empire: Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain (Yale Center for British Art, 2014-10-02 - 2014-12-14)

The Conversation Piece - Arthur Devis & His Contemporaries (Yale Center for British Art, 1980-10-01 - 1980-11-30)

Publications:

Susan Dwyer Amussen, Caribbean exchanges : slavery and the transformation of English society, 1640-1700, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC, pp. 211-212, HT1165 .A68 2007 (YCBA)

An Elihu Yale conversation piece, The Yale University library gazette, vol. 35, no. 4 (April 1961), Yale University Library, New Haven, CT, pp. 158-161, Z733 Y18 A4 (BEINECKE)

F. E. G. Bagshawe, Index to "The Bagshawes of Ford", no. 216a, Not at Yale (available at University of Nottingham)

David Bindman, The Image of the Black in Western Art : From the " Age of Discovery" to the Age of Abolition, , vol. 3, part 3, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2010, pp. 139-41, fig. 130, N8217.B535 I42 2010+ (YCBA) Citations are to Vol. 3, Part 3

David W. Blight, Yale and slavery: a history, , Yale University Press, New Haven, p. 45, LD6334 .B55 2024

Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 32-33, N590.2 .A83 (YCBA)

Ellen G. D'Oench, The Conversation Piece: Arthur Devis & his contemporaries, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1980, pp. 4, 67, no. 45, fig. 1, NJ18 D5151 D64 OVERSIZE

Elihu Yale : the great Welsh American, Wrexham Area Civic Society, Wrexham, Clwyd, UK, p. 15, CS71 Y18 1991 (YCBA)

Elihu Yale, Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin, Bulletin 2012, Yale University Art Gallery, 2012, pp. 38, 39, 59, fig. 4, ND1314.3 .E55 2012 (YCBA)

Figures of Empire : Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2014, pp. 10-11, 41, chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://britishart.yale.edu/sites/default/files/inline/Figures%20of%20Empire_booklet_FINAL.pdf

Figures of Empire : Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2014, pp. 10-11, 41, V 2556 (YCBA)

Jonathan Holloway, Commentary on a Group Portrait featuring Elihu Yale by an unknown artist, , Yale Center for British Art, Accessed 11/30/2015, 21:00 minutes, http://interactive.britishart.yale.edu/slavery-and-portraiture/331/commentary-by-jonathan-holloway

Jonathan Holloway, Commentary on Portrait of a Family by William Hogarth, [ Website ] , Yale Center for British Art, Accessed 11/30/2015, scattered comments and references, http://interactive.britishart.yale.edu/slavery-and-portraiture/338/commentary-by-jonathan-holloway

H. C. G. Matthew, Oxford dictionary of national biography, in association with the British Academy : from the earliest times to the year 2000 , vol. 59, Oxford University Press, Oxford ; New York, 2004, v. 60, pp. 722-723, DA28 .D5 2004

Christopher Maxwell, In sparkling company : reflections on glass in the 18th-century British world, Corning Museum of Glass, Corning : NY, p. 78, fig. 54, NK5143 .M46 2020+ (YCBA)

Marcia R. Pointon, Portrayal and the search for identity, Reaktion Books, London, 2013, pp. 48-50. 53-55,69-70, illus. 7, N7575 .P6452 2013 (YCBA)

Romita Ray, Commentary on a Group Portrait featuring Elihu Yale by an unknown artist, [ Website ] , Yale Center for British Art, Accessed 11/30/2015, 32:42 minutes, http://interactive.britishart.yale.edu/slavery-and-portraiture/332/commentary-by-romita-ray

Daniel Roza, Commentary on a Group Portrait featuring Elihu Yale by an unknown artist, , Yale Center for British Art, Accessed 11/30/2015, 4:26 minutes, http://interactive.britishart.yale.edu/slavery-and-portraiture/330/commentary-by-daniel-roza

Diana Scarisbrick, Elihu Yale : merchant, collector & patron, Thames & Hudson, 2014, pp. 54, 55, fig. 18, DA497.Y3 S37 2014 (YCBA)

Slavery and Portraiture in 18th-century Atlantic Britain, [Website] , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2015, https://interactive.britishart.yale.edu/slavery-and-portraiture/

Roy C. Strong, Artist & the Garden, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2000, p. 59, no. 67, ND1460 G37 S77 2000 OVERSIZE (YCBA)

Beth Fowkes Tobin, Picturing Imperial Power : Colonial Subjects in Eighteenth Century British Painting, Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina, 1999, p. 29, no. 2, ND466 759 1999 (YCBA)

Edward Town, A reckoning with our past : Yale examines it historical ties with slavery, Yale Alumni Magazine, vol. 85, no.3 (January/February 2022), Yale Alumni Publications, New Haven, CT, pp.34-35, 40-41, Yh10 +A2 (LSF)

Edward Town, Marking time : objects, people, and their lives, 1500-1800, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, p. 49, fig. 4, BF468 .M35 2020 (YCBA)

Edward Town, New light on the group portrait of Elihu Yale, his family, and an enslaved child [Website], Accessed June 6, 2021, https://britishart.yale.edu/new-light-group-portrait-elihu-yale-his-family-and-enslaved-child

Merlin Waterson, Although a rascal, Eli Yale used his means effectively, Smithsonian, vol. 8 (October 1977), Smithsonian Associates, Washington, DC, pp. 91, 96, A53 Sm68+ (LSF)

Gallery Label:

This painting depicts the university’s early benefactor and namesake, Elihu Yale (1649–1721). He is seated between his sons-in-law, whose marriages to his daughters Catherine and Anne Yale had been brokered with the vast wealth he had accrued as a merchant and colonial administrator in India. While Yale’s grandchildren play in the background, an enslaved child, whose name is now unknown, serves wine to the men. Over the course of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, many children of African and Indian descent, mostly boys, were separated from their families to serve as attendants in wealthy households in Britain. Often, these children were forced to wear metal collars, like the one seen here, to identify and recapture those who ran away. Although never part of Paul Mellon’s collection of British art, this group portrait was the first painting to be formally accessioned by the museum. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2021

Link:

https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:107