"Two African Princes [Ayuba Suleiman Diallo and William Ansah Sessarakoo]," Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle

June 1750

Unknown engraver

Etching and engraving

Quarto

The two men represented here—Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, also known as Job Ben Solomon (1701–1773), and William Ansah Sessarakoo (ca. 1730–1770)—came to prominence

in Britain in the 1730s and 1740s. Both were Africans from prosperous slave-trading families, who were themselves taken into slavery and subsequently freed. They became celebrities upon their arrival in Britain and were avidly discussed in newspapers, journals, and other printed texts.

This engraving is based on two earlier oil paintings, probably commissioned by the sitters’ English supporters. Diallo sat for William Hoare of Bath (ca. 1707–1792) in 1733, and Sessarakoo for Gabriel Mathias (1719–1804) in 1749. Diallo requested that he be painted in his own clothes and is shown in a loose robe and turban with a small Qur’an hanging round his neck. Sessarakoo is dressed as a wealthy European gentleman in a brocaded jacket, perhaps in readiness for his presentation to King George II. Both men are depicted in accordance with long-standing conventions of formal, bust-length portraiture; their torsos are slightly angled, but their faces address us frontally.

S 11

Yale Center for British Art, Rare Books and Manuscripts

http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/3700291

Related Media

"Two African Princes," Gentleman's Magazine (London: 1750) "Two African Princes [Ayuba Suleiman Diallo and William Ansah Sessarakoo]," Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle (London: 1750). Yale Center for British Art, Rare Books and Manuscripts