Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying)

It is not the most optimistic painting in the world but it is November, and it is dark and cold in Warsaw, where the whole DailyArt crew is based. You'll have to forgive us for featuring this piece, originally entitled Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying — Typhon coming on. A passionate abolitionist, JMW Turner was inspired to paint this overwhelming work after reading Thomas Clarkson's The History and Abolition of the Slave Trade. 

When Turner exhibited this picture at the Royal Academy in 1840, he paired it with the following extract from his unfinished and unpublished poem Fallacies of Hope (1812): 

"Aloft all hands, strike the top-masts and belay;
Yon angry setting sun and fierce-edged clouds
Declare the Typhon's coming.
Before it sweeps your decks, throw overboard
The dead and dying - ne'er heed their chains
Hope, Hope, fallacious Hope!
Where is thy market now?""