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Issue 255, Friday 30 July 2010 - 18 Sha'ban 1431

Campaign to keep portrait of freed slave

By Sara Asaria

Ayuba Suleiman Diallo called Job Ben Solomon by William Hoare of Bath. (Photo: Christie’s Images Limited)

The National Portrait Gallery have launched a campaign to raise £554,937.50 for William Hoare’s 1733 painting of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo.

Though the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Art Fund have provided grants of £330,000 and £100,000 to fund the purchase, the gallery needs a remaining £100,000, or the painting could be sold to a foreign buyer.

The painting, however, was sold at Christie’s auction, the British Government have barred the sale until mid-August, allowing the Gallery to save it from export.

In addition to being the first oil painting of a freed slave, this portrait of Diallo is the first oil portrait of a black West African Muslim to be painted in Britain.

Dr Lucy Peltz, 18th Century Curator, argues that the painting will be able to “shed light on the length and depth of Britain’s diverse and shared multicultural heritage… his portrait would create a telling counterpoint to, for instance, Pierre Mignard’s painting of Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth of 1682, with its depiction of a black child slave.”

Diallo is believed to have been born in 1701, to a wealthy family of Muslim scholars in Senegambia, West Africa. He was highly educated, multi-lingual and initially worked as a slave dealer before being kidnapped by a rival tribe. The tribe shaved his beard as an act of humiliation, before sending him to a tobacco plantation in Maryland, US, where he worked as a slave. However, in 1733, British lawyer and missionary, Thomas Bluett, brought him to London. Diallo became instantly famous and regained a celebrity status for the rest of his life, even meeting King George II.

His assimilation with the upper class society funded his release from slavery and greatly developed British understanding of West African culture.

In 1774, his memoirs were published, which remain a useful source to historians studying the slave trade. His translation of Arabic documents and inscriptions for Sir Hans Sloane formed the basis of the British Museum. Known as Job Ben Solomon by his English counterparts, he reluctantly agreed to have the portrait taken at the insistence of his friends.

He is presented wearing traditional African clothing and his own written edition of Qur’an around his neck. According to Peltz, “The portrait shows us a man whose sense of identity (African) and faith (Islam) were defining characteristics.”

“In a society where they describe feeling surrounded by negative media-driven portrayals of the Arab world, they searched for an inspirational figure that they could somehow relate to or understand. As Diallo is such a remarkable historical figure, his compelling portrait would help to address this lack. It would provide the opportunity for young people and their families to learn and explore their own heritage and understand the diversity and complexity of Britain’s heritage,” she said.

Diallo, aged 15, married the daughter of the Alpha of Tobut, aged 11. Two years later they had their first son Abdolah, followed by two more: HIbrahim and Sambo. Diallo also had a second daughter, Fatima, from his second marriage to the daughter of the Alpha of Tumga.