Figure of an Enslaved African Man

This tortured figure of an enslaved African man derives from Pietro Tacca’s sixteenth-century monument known as the "Four Moors" (I Quattro Mori), in Livorno, which commemorated Medici triumphs over the Ottomans in the late sixteenth century. The sculptor’s sympathetic portrayal of four galley slaves at the base of the pedestal mesmerized viewers after its completion around 1626, even after the Medici lost power over the port city. Smaller figures were subsequently adapted and transformed into bronze and porcelain versions, including examples by Doccia. This piece, possibly made after a model by Giuseppe Piamontini at the end of the eighteenth century, is clearly inspired by Tacca. Far removed from the triumphalist rhetoric of the original monument in Livorno, this arresting porcelain figure foregrounds the physical horrors of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, as the extraordinary human cost of bringing luxury commodities and pleasures to Europe became increasingly visible with the establishment of the abolitionist movement.