Serving Dish
John Sutton
1677–78
Medium
Silver
Dimensions
13.2 × 38.6 × 29.7 cm (5 3/16 × 15 3/16 × 11 11/16 in.)
Classification
silver
Department
Applied Arts of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
60774
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This silver dish was probably commissioned in London as a corporate gift for the New Royal African Company, which had a monopoly on England’s commerce with West Africa between 1672 and 1698. The company bought and sold commodities such as ivory and gold, but its most lucrative business was trafficking enslaved Africans. Between 1672 and 1731 its officers forcibly transported almost 200,000 enslaved people to British colonies in the Americas. This dish, engraved with the company’s coat of arms, m...