- Object type
- Prints and Drawings
- Date
- After 1686
- Subject(s)
-
Knights of Malta
Slavery - Associated person
- Nicolas Cotoner (1608 - 1680)
- Dimensions
- Height x width (paper size): 530 x 270mm
- Materials and technique
- Watercolour on paper
- Provenance
- Purchased
- Catalogue number
- 1195
The Tomb of Nicholas Cotoner
The two crouching figures at the base of this monument, personifications of Asia and Africa, are slaves. In the early modern period, Malta was the epicentre of the European slave trade. The Order captured and enslaved North Africans and Ottomans to man their galleys and serve on the island, and relied on slaves to power commercial ventures such as sugar mills in the West Indies.