Its subject matter, historical period, and mode of creation suggest the artist intended the painting as an abolitionist statement.

The three-quarter portrait shows a Black man in orange-red open collar clothing, sitting on a stone bench, against a muted background, with the subject taking up most of the frame.

[1][3] His aspect is saintly[1] or heroic,[2] imploring, vulnerable, and somewhat passive in rest, which allowed British viewers, when the portrait was first shown to sympathize or pity the subject and deplore his condition.

[1] The artist, John Simpson, was a British portrait painter who studied at the Royal Academies, and was a longtime assistant of the portraitist Thomas Lawrence.

Reviewer Martin Postle concludes:Despite enduring critical neglect and eventual obscurity, Simpson was a gifted artist, capable at times of venturing beyond the parameters of society portraiture and his position as a studio assistant.

And in one particular work, The Captive Slave, John Simpson produced a painting of iconic status, which can be regarded today as his masterpiece and as a worthy emblem of the aims and achievements of the Abolition Movement.

[2][6] Aldridge was born a free negro and educated in New York, though he left the United States because of the lack of serious acting opportunities there for Black men.