been established in 1600 by Queen Elizabeth I (reigned 1558–1603) and granted a British monopoly in
trade with the east, woolen and silk textiles and spices being the main imported commodities. The
Company also became involved in the slave trade. This was followed in 1602 by the establishment of the
Dutch East India Company; in 1621 by the Dutch West India Company; and in 1664 by the French East
India Company. In the same year the French West India Company was founded and granted the French
monopoly on the slave trade between Africa (mainly Senegal) and the West Indies.
These trading companies were massive organizations, often incorporating military forces and complex,
hierarchical and administrative structures, that financed the shipment of goods from established trading
posts in the colonies. Britain’s East India Company established in India, due to aggressive competition
from rival colonial powers, military forts and a private army dependent on the recruitment of local troops
(sepoys). Naval convoys accompanied its shipments. It gained political influence over an increasing
number of Indian provinces, and many Company officers returned to Britain with sufficient wealth to
purchase parliamentary seats and prestigious country estates. These “nabobs” were often accused of
nepotism, greed and corruption (Quilley, 2011, 148–151). During the nineteenth century inhuman treatment
of Indian peoples and heavy financial losses led to the downfall of the Company, and the British
government began to rule the subcontinent directly (Robins, 2006, 1–6).
The main source of African slaves shipped across the Atlantic was the west coast of Africa, from the
Senegal River to Angola. The British, French, Dutch, Danish and Prussians were all involved in this
trade, each having their own trading posts and using middlemen to capture and deliver to European
merchants native inhabitants of local villages. The resulting transportation across the Atlantic of slave
labor made possible imports to Europe from the Caribbean and other places of coffee, tobacco and sugar.
European governments either issued policies supporting the use of slave labor, or encouraged private
investors to deal in chattel slavery, in which slaves became the personal property of their owners and
were treated as commodities. The growth of urban culture in wealthier European countries encouraged the
purchase of slaves from the colonies for domestic service, as more members of the upper middle
(professional and commercial) classes sought to copy this aristocratic practice. The laws surrounding this
practice were often unclear in Britain and France, where some slaves might be deported back to the
colonies against their will, while, in other households, they acquired the same rights and status as white
servants. Some took to the streets, becoming entertainers, musicians or beggars. Both plantationowning
and other families sought to purchase black slaveservants. All of these issues inflected eighteenth
century art.
Scope and Structure
The chronological span of the book (1700–1800) may in itself raise questions, since it has become
common to speak in terms of a “long” eighteenth century, from the Glorious Revolution of 1688 to 1830,
the date of another important Revolution in France and a watershed in Britain with the “Victorian” age. A
more modest chronology, covering the actual eighteenth century, was decided on the basis of space and
the difficulties of doing justice here to the rich postRevolutionary and early “Romantic” developments
that came later. There are, however, frequent references to art of the seventeenth century, and of earlier
periods, where essential to the discussion. As is the nature of basic introductions, the reader will find
many artists omitted. It is hoped nevertheless that this book will present analytical concepts and
frameworks that may be applied to a range of eighteenthcentury artists, institutions and works of art.
Intext references are provided to facilitate the search for further information on specific points.
Chapter 1 focuses on issues relating to artistic institutions and the discourses of hierarchy relating to