Boston artist Robert Salmon painted this commercial ship (or merchantman)—a trading vessel that would have trans-ported cargo and carried passengers for hire—near the British port city of Liverpool during his first visit there in 1806–1811.The artist’s precise transcription of the scene has enabled experts to identify the type of ship, its location, and the date of the painting.

Britain was crucial to European slave trading between 1640and 1807. For much of this period, Liverpool was Europe’s chief port for the embarkation of enslaved Africans. Salmon’s scene depicts the Liverpool port two years after the trans-atlantic slave trade was abolished. However, Liverpool continued to profit from the trading routes that had been established by the transatlantic slave trade, and much of the city’s wealth had its origins in slavery.