Liberty Displaying the Arts and Sciences

Produced in London in 1792, this painting by Samuel Jennings is best known for figures omitted from the painting’s title: freed Africans kneeling in gratitude at the personification of Liberty’s feet. As was common in anti-slavery imagery in the late eighteenth-century, Jennings depicts the Black figures in paternalistic poses. Jennings produced a larger version of this painting as a gift for the Library Company in his hometown of Philadelphia. This scaled copy of the painting, like other anti-slavery imagery, reflects the painter's intention of selling mass-produced prints made from it, though for Jennings, this never materialized.