Man Struggling with a Boa Constrictor, Study for “The Liboya Serpent Seizing His Prey”
Date:
ca. 1803
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
33 x 47 inches (83.8 x 119.4 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.664
Gallery Label:
In this unfinished painting, Ward created a carefully rendered study of a man using all his strength to push a large snake from his body, his eyes trained on the flailing tail that might strike at any moment. Ward made this painting in preparation for a much larger painting, now lost but known through a full compositional study. The final painting was wildly ambitious: it showed an impossibly long snake enveloping the body of a white horse, snatching the rider from its back. Given Ward’s opposition to Britain’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, it seems likely he intended his composition to be read as an allegory of slavery, which at the time was yet to be abolished. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2021