Richard Ansdell (1815 – 1885)
Oil on canvas, 184 x 308cm
Painted in 1861, when the slave trade had been abolished, but slavery still existed—and war over slavery was breaking out in North America—it depicts two runaway slaves fighting off the pack of mastiffs sent to hunt them down.
As a metaphor for that global struggle in which they were enmeshed, it’s dead on.
More about the painting and its context here.
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