Figure Advertising the “Hamburg Slave Funds” (1650–75)

This wooden figure depicting a Hamburg sailor in chains draws attention to the plight of seafarers from Hamburg who had been captured and enslaved by the North African, so-called “Barbary States” (modern-day Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya). The “Hamburg Slave Funds” established in 1624 organized collections of donations to buy the enslaved sailors from Hamburg their freedom.