Art UK has updated its cookies policy. By using this website you are agreeing to the use of cookies. To find out more read our updated Use of Cookies policy and our updated Privacy policy.

How you can use this image

This image has been made available under a Creative Commons Zero licence (CC0). This means it can be used in any way, for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

Please acknowledge the collection who own the work with a photo credit — this helps spread the word about their resources.

To learn more about image reuse and Creative Commons, please see our image use page.

Download

Notes

Add or edit a note on this artwork that only you can see. You can find notes again by going to the ‘Notes’ section of your account.

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.

Title

Elihu Yale with Members of his Family and an Enslaved Child

Date

c.1719

Medium

oil on canvas

Measurements

H 201.3 x W 235.6 cm

Accession number

B1970.1

Acquisition method

gift of Andrew Cavendish, eleventh Duke of Devonshire

Work type

Painting

Tags

This artwork does not have any tags yet. You can help by tagging artworks on Tagger.

Yale Center for British Art

1080 Chapel Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06510-2302, USA,

This venue is closed to the public.
View venue