New research on “The Island of Barbados”
Attributed to Isaac Sailmaker, The Island of Barbados, ca. 1694, oil on canvas, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
May 27, 2024
Beginning in 2023, the painting The Island of Barbados became the subject of focused study at the Yale Center for British Art, which included in-depth archival research, technical analysis of the painting’s materials and techniques, and a full restoration by the conservation team. Micrograph enlargements of this early depiction of British colonialism reveal details of various figures populating the painting, many of which have become far more visible as a result of the painting’s conservation treatment. The painting offers significant insight into seventeenth-century Barbados, the nature of plantation enslavement in the British colonies, and the contemporaneous British understanding of that brutal system.
The web story, written by Sarah Mead Leonard during her time as a Postdoctoral Associate in the YCBA’s Research Department, is part of a larger project exploring The Island of Barbados and two other early paintings of Barbados in the collections of Dyrham Park (National Trust, UK) and the Barbados Museum and Historical Society.
Read the essay here.
