Los luchadores

Etty painted this around 1840, and the timing matters. That year London hosted the World Anti-Slavery Convention, and slavery and race were argued over everywhere in the city. Into that moment Etty set a black man and a white man locked together in a wrestling hold, both under a raking light that carves out every muscle. He made it at the Royal Academy's life class, where he sometimes arranged what he called a treat, several models posed together instead of the usual one, so students could draw a full scene. Showing a black and a white figure gripped in an embrace like this was rare for the time. It is oil on a sheet of millboard, worked up quickly over about three evenings.