The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume III: From the “Age of Discovery” to the Age of Abolition, Part 3: The Eighteenth Century

Bindman, David; Gates Jr., Henry Louis

Description: The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume III: From the “Age of...

David Bindman (Editor), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Editor)

In the 1960s, art patron Dominique de Menil founded an image archive showing the ways that people of African descent have been represented in Western art. Highlights from her collection appeared in three large-format volumes that quickly became collector’s items. A half-century later, Harvard University Press and the Du Bois Institute are proud to publish a complete set of ten sumptuous books, including new editions of the original volumes and two additional ones.

The Eighteenth Century features a particularly rich collection of images of Africans representing slavery’s apogee and the beginnings of abolition. Old visual tropes of a master with adoring black slave gave way to depictions of Africans as victims and individuals, while at the same time the intellectual foundations of scientific racism were established.

*This eBook is available exclusively on the A&AePortal*

Author

David Bindman (Editor), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Editor)

PublisherHarvard University Press

Print publication date November 2011 (in print)

Print ISBN 9780674052635

EISBN 9780674052635

Illustrations 294

Print Status in print

Publisher (in print)

WorldCat

Google Books

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

Get access

List of illustrations

Possibly Fath Khan, son of Malik Ambar
Detail of a head
Frontispiece to Claude-Nicolas Le Cat, "Traité de la couleur de la peau humaine en général, de celle des nègres en particulier" (Amsterdam, 1765)
Tombstone of Scipio, servant to the Earl of Suffolk
Little Black Boy
Portrait of a Man, probably Francis Barber
Jacobus Joannes Eliza Capitein, detail
Europe Supported by Africa and America
Europe Supported by Africa and America
Advertisement for a runaway slave
Africa
Frontispiece
Christ appearing before the Four Continents
Allegory of the art of navigation
Africa. From a series of the Four Continents
Africa, from a series of the Four Continents
Africa. Detail of "Apotheosis of the House of Wittelsbach
Africa. From a series of high-relief overdoors of the Four Continents
Charles VI as Apollo bringing light to the world
Apollo and the Four Continents
Apollo and the Four Continents, detail
Apollo and the Four Continents, detail
Apollo and the Four Continents, detail
Triumph of a Roman Emperor
Three musicians on a balcony
Africans
Table fountain representing the world, including the Four Continents
William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, with an American Indian
Africa, from a series of figures representing the Four Continents
One of six armchairs decorated with carved Moors
Allegory of Fortitude
Candelholder in the form of a Moor wearing a skirt of tobacco leaves
The Moor
Bust of a Black Man
Detail of the "Glorification of the Apostolate of Saint Ignatius
Triumph of Faith over Idolatry
The Adoration of the Name of Jesus by the People of the World and the Saints in Heaven
Virgin Mary Interceding for Divine Mercy and the Four Continents
Detail of "Virgin Mary Interceding for Divine Mercy and the Four Continents
Liberation of Two Slaves
Detail of "Liberation of Two Slaves
The Baptism of Christ, cartoon for the mosaic decoration of the dome of the vestibule to the Baptismal Chapel of St. Peter's Basilica
Africa, from "Allegory of the Four Continents
Baptism of the Eunuch, cartoon for the lunette in St. Peter's Basilica, Baptismal Chapel
Saint Matthew Resuscitating the Son of the King of Ethiopia
Saint Matthew Baptizing the Queen of Ethiopia
Allegory of the Four Continents
The Nations of Africa, engraving after a mural painting in the Escalier des Ambassadeurs (now destroyed) in the Château de Versailles
The inhabitants of hell, costume design for a divertissement in Philippe Quinault's "Thésée," act 4
Court Society, from "Puppenstadt 'Mon Plaisir'
Nursery of the "Kammermohr," from "Puppenstadt 'Mon Plaisir'
Portrait of Friedrich Ernst Freiherr von Knyphausen
Portrait of Frederick II the Great as a child and his sister Wilhelmine
Augustus II the Strong as a Moorish King
Female guéridon
Male guéridon
African warriors with bows and arrows
A black drummer on horseback
A black trumpeter on horseback
Musicians at the coronation of the Swedish king Charles XI
Hottentot warrior
Hottentot woman
The Court of Aurangzeb
The Court of Aurangzeb, detail
The Moor Carrying an Emerald Matrix
The Moor Carrying an Emerald Matrix, detail
Outina's Order of March
Two Moors carrying platters of pearls
Portrait of Angelo Soliman
Portrait of Adolph Badin playing chess
Portrait of Adolph Badin riding back from his campaign
Portrait of Kislar Agassi
Portrait of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in Turkish dress
Young Turkish Girl at Her Bath
Mademoiselle de Clermont at Her Bath
Sultan's Wife Drinking Coffee
A woman at her bath with a black attendant
Head of the eunuchs
Black eunuch
The Black Sultana
A Black Page Caressing a Shepherdess
Sgr. Jonimo and the Moor Friederica
Black servant
The Music Party
Coquettes
Eight studies of heads
Columbine, Harlequin, and a Venetian, with their Masks
Three studies of the head of a black youth
The Conversation
The Negro and the Cook
Three studies of the head of a turbaned black man
The Escaped Bird
The Conversation
Bathsheba in the Bath
Study of two heads from Paolo Veronese's "Feast in the House of Levi
Adoration of the Magi
The Family of Darius Before Alexander (detail)
The Banquet of Cleopatra
The Banquet of Cleopatra
Detail of "The Banquet of Cleopatra
The Banquet of Cleopatra, detail
Finding of Moses
Adoration of the Magi, detail
Adoration of the Magi
Death of the Wife of Darius, detail
Adoration of the Magi
Watson and the Shark
Head of a Black Man
The Death of Major Peirson, 6 January 1781
The Death of Major Peirson 6 January 1781, detail
The Battle of Bunker's Hill, June 17, 1775
Armed black man, detail of "The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker's Hill 17 June 1775
Narcisse, nègre du duc d'Orléans
Mademoiselle Desgots, from Saint-Dominque, Plaing the Harpsichord with her Negro Laurent
Portrait of Messierus de Caumartin with Their Negro, Telemachus
Auguste, Young Negro of Mme. The Duchess of Chartres
A Girl with Flowers and Fruits
Black Youth with Flowers and Vessels
High Life Below Stairs
Henry Fox and the Third Earl of Albemarle Shooting at Goodwood
Henry Fox and the Third Earl of Albemarle Shooting at Goodwood, detail
The Duke of Cumberland's Negro Servant
Black Youth Holding a Bow
Portrait of Prince Frederick Augustus II
Portrait of Jean-François Balland d'Augustebourg, marquis de Varambon and baron de Richemont
Memento Mori
Sketch for A Rake's Progress
Portrait of First Lieutenant Paul Henry Ourry with his black page, Jersey
Captain Lord George Graham in his Cabin
Captain Lord George Graham in his Cabin, detail of black youth
Elihu Yale, William Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Devonshire, Lord James Cavendish, Mr. Tunstal and Page
Sir Thomas Samwell and his friends
The Sense of Taste
The Wollaston Family
Portrait of Frederick William Ernest, Count of Schaumberg-Lippe
Portrait of John Manners, Marquess of Granby
Black groom, detail of the portrait of John Manners, Marquess of Granby
Portrait of Charles Stanhope, Third Earl of Harrington
HRH George, Prince of Wales with a Black Servant
George Washington
The Fruits of Early Industry and Oeconomy
A Party Angling
The Angler's Repast
Woman of Quality Dressed as a Sultana
Dame
Louise de Kéroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth
Portrait of Elizabeth-Charlotte of Bavaria, Duchess of Orléans
Portrait of Catherine-Marie Legendre, Madame de Pécoil
An Unidentified Lady Washing Her Black Slave
Angola, Black Trumpeter of King Louis XIV, with His Mistress
Moroccan Ambassadors at the Italian Theater
A Yound Black Boy, Possibly Zamor
Portrait of Anne, Duchess of Bedford
Portrait of Lady Elizabeth Keppel
Portrait of Lady Elizabeth Murray with Dido Elizabeth Belle
Marriage à-la-Mode, IV: The Countess's Morning Levée
A Harlot's Progress, plate 2
Taste in High Life
The Girl in Stile
A Young Girl with a Dog and a Page
The Family of Sir William Young
Two Girls with Their Black Servant
A Lady and Her Children Relieving a Cottager
Execrable Human Traffick; or, The Affectionate Slaves
African Hospitality
Woman Holding a Mask of a Black Man
Portrait of a Negro Buttoning his Shirt
Study for Portrait of a Negro Buttoning his Shirt
Portrait of a Young Woman
Bust of Paul, servant to Aignan-Thomas Desfriches
Love in the Town, or Flirtatious Love
The Sorrows of Love
Portrait of Louis Aniaba, prince of the Kingdom of Issigny
Potrait of Louis Aniaba, prince of the Kingdom of Issigny
Portrait of Francis Williams, the Scholar of Jamaica
Ayuba Suleiman Diallo (Job ben Solomon)
Portrait of William Ansah Sessarakoo, son of Eno Baisie Kurentsi (John Currantee) of Anomabu
Portrait of William Sessarakoo
Portrait of Ignatius Sancho
Portrait of Phillis Wheatley
Portrait of the artist and his wife with a black servant (probably Cugoano)
Detail of the portrait of the artist and his wife with a black servant (probably Cugoano)
Portrait of Cugoano, detail
Portrait of Olaudah Equiano
A black man, sometimes thought to be Equiano
Noon, from the "Times of Day" series
A View of Cheapside, as It Appeard on Lord Mayor's Day Last (detail)
Caricature Shop
Mrs. Newsham, the white Negress
A white Negro woman, together with her husband, and two children
Portrait of Mary Sabina
Sarah Baartman, the Hottentot Venus
Portrait of Joseph Johnson
Study for frontispiece to "Othello, the Moor of Venice"
Frontispiece to "Othello, the Moor of Venice
Frontispiece to "Othello, the Moor of Venice
Study for a London signboard of a black boy holding a large tricorn hat
The Indian Queen, Shop card for Bellamy and Robarts
Tobacco paper for Shallett's Virginia tobacco at "the Black Boy and White Horse"
Tobacco paper for "Newman's best Virginia"
Ignatius Sancho's shop card, "Sancho's Best Trinidado"
The Wedgwood medallion ("Am I not a Man and a Brother?")
Black African beggar
Votive portrait of Lazzaro Zen
The Courier
Othello and Desdemona (The Geography Lesson)
Totius Africa Nova Representatio
Map of Africa
Reception of the Ambassador from Tunis
Initiation of Young Men into Manhood
Guinean mother washing her child
Children with birth defects
Hottentot woman
Portrait of Chief Coba
Village scene with Chief Coba
Members of a Khoikhoi kraal performing a dance
Namaqua family
Khoikhoi method of burial
Village scene with "Strandlopers
Gordon's Great Map (detail)
Gordon's Great Map (detail)
Two studies of a young African girl
Boers returning from hunting
Africa, one of four paintings from a series of the Four Continents
The Southwell Frigate: tradeing on the Coast of Africa
the Jason Privateer
British men-of-war at anchor following an attack on the fort at Gorée on 29 December 1758
Sea Captains Carousing in Surinam
Portrait of Jacobus Capitein
Portrait of Jacobus Capitein
The Grosvenor East Indiaman
Oroonoko
Practical Christianity: A Forcible Appeal for the Abolition of the Slave Trade
Cruelty & Oppression Abroad
Justice and Humanity at Home
The Blind Enthusiast
Barbarities in the West Indias
Philanthropic Consolations, After the Loss of the Slave Bill
Anti-saccharites,—or—John Bull and His family Leaving Off the Use of Sugar
Inkle and Yarico
Oroonoko and Imoinda
Indian village
Ritual Slave Party on a Plantation in Surinam
From Spaniard and Black, Mulatto
From Spaniard and Mulatto, Morisca
A mulatto woman
Spaniard and Mulatta Produce a Morisca
Spaniard and Morisca Produce an Albino
From Spaniard and Indian, Mestiza
A map of the parish of St. Stephen in Craven County, South Carolina (detail)
Illustration for the poem The Voyage of the Sable Venus, from Angola to the West Indies
Charles Calvert and a slave
Old Cudjoe Making Peace
Leonard Parkinson, captain of the Maroons
A Prospect of oRa Cabeca in the Parish of St. Mariesm, the North Side Jamaica. Taken from the Road Leading to St. Anns 1766
A View in the Island of Jamaica of the Spring-head of Roaring River
Court House and Guard House in the town of St. John's, Antigua
Parham Hill House and Sugar Plantation
William Pusey and his wife, Elizabeth Kingston
Mary Pusey and her father, Mr. Butler, in a boat with a black servant
A black youth, from the album "The Negro Servants of William Beckford
A black girl, from the album "The Negro Servants of William Beckford
Sir William Young Conducting a Treaty with the Black Caribs on the Island of Saint Vincent
A Linen Market in the West Indies in the Island of Dominica
Linen Day, Roseau, Dominica
The Barbados Mulatto Girl
Free Natives of Dominica
Free Women of Color with Their Children and Servants in a Landscape
West India Washer-women
A Cudgelling Match Between English and French Negroes in the Island of Dominica
A Lady Attended by a Negro Servant, Two Negroes Beyond
Portrait of Rachel Pringle
Buffet Beneath a Trellis
The Piebald Horse, or The Indian on Horseback, from "Tenture des Anciennes Indes
The Camel or the Piebald Horse, from "Tenture des Nouvelles Indes
The Two Bulls, from "Tenture des Nouvelles Indes
The Two Bulls, from "Tenture des Nouvelles Indes," detail
The Carried Negro Woman, from "Tenture des Nouvelles Indes
The Indian Fishermen, from "Tenture des Nouvelles Indes
Africa, from "Allegory of the Four Continents
Africa, from "Allegory of the Four Continents," detail
Allegory of Commerce
The Spirit of Commerce Discovers America and Condemns Africa to Slavery, detail
Africa and Asia, from an allegory of the Four Continents
Once Bitten, Twice Shy
The Port of Nippe
Black and mulatto men and women of the colonies
Portrait of Jean-Baptiste Terrien
Discussion concerning men of color (Discussion sur les hommes de couleur)
Equality Granted to Blacks
I Am Also Free
You Will at Last Be Happy
Portrait of François-Dominique Toussaint-Louverture on horseback
The Oath of the Ancestors

Free

Contents

David Bindman (Editor), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Editor)

The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume III: From the “Age of Discovery” to the Age of Abolition, Part 3: The Eighteenth Century

Contents

Author

David Bindman (Editor), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Editor)

PublisherHarvard University Press

Read

Free

Foreword

Josef Helfenstein and Kristina Van Dyke

The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume III: From the “Age of Discovery” to the Age of Abolition, Part 3: The Eighteenth Century

~In 1960, the Menil Foundation launched The Image of the Black in Western Art, a groundbreaking project that attempted to produce “an archaeological archive of racial relations, happy and unhappy.”John de Menil to Dr. Ola Balogun, 25 August 1972, Menil Archives, Menil...

Author

David Bindman (Editor), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Editor)

PublisherHarvard University Press

Read

Free

Preface to The Image of the Black in Western Art

David Bindman (Editor), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Editor)

The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume III: From the “Age of Discovery” to the Age of Abolition, Part 3: The Eighteenth Century

The Image of the Black in Western Art was conceived by the late Dominique Schlumberger de Menil (1908-1997) and her husband, John (1904-1973), fifty years ago. The de Menils were known internationally for their patronage of artists such as René Magritte and Max Ernst as early as the 1930s, and eventually for the size and range of their art collection. Their passion for art led them...

Author

David Bindman (Editor), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Editor)

PublisherHarvard University Press

Read

Free

Editor’s Introduction

David Bindman

The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume III: From the “Age of Discovery” to the Age of Abolition, Part 3: The Eighteenth Century

Volume III, Part 3 of the multivolume work The Image of the Black in Western Art deals with the eighteenth century, though inevitably it looks both forward and back. It therefore covers the period after Volume III, Part 1 and Part 2, and before Volume IV (in two parts) by Hugh Honour, which first appeared in 1989 and is soon to be republished in a new...

Author

David Bindman (Editor), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Editor)

PublisherHarvard University Press

Read

Free

Acknowledgments

David Bindman (Editor), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Editor)

The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume III: From the “Age of Discovery” to the Age of Abolition, Part 3: The Eighteenth Century

Our warmest thanks again go to Josef Helfenstein, director of the Menil Collection, and to the Menil Foundation, Houston, Texas, for allowing us to use the materials commissioned under the auspices of the Foundation. We are also grateful to all the authors—those who began work on their contributions in the early 1990s, and those who came to the project more...

Author

David Bindman (Editor), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Editor)

PublisherHarvard University Press

Read

Introduction

David Bindman and Bruce Boucher and Helen Weston

The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume III: From the “Age of Discovery” to the Age of Abolition, Part 3: The Eighteenth Century

It is by the finest tints, and most insensible gradations, that nature descends from the fairest face about St. James’s, to the sootiest complexion in Africa: at which tint of these, is it, that the ties of blood are to cease? And how many shades must we descend lower still in the scale, ‘ere Mercy is to vanish with them?—but ‘tis no uncommon thing, my good Sancho, for one...

Author

David Bindman (Editor), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Editor)

PublisherHarvard University Press

Subjects: Blacks in artSlavery in artImperialismArt, European--18th centuryArt, European--17th century

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

Get access

1. The Theater of Court and Church: Blacks as Figures of Fantasy

David Bindman and Bruce Boucher and Helen Weston

The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume III: From the “Age of Discovery” to the Age of Abolition, Part 3: The Eighteenth Century

The eighteenth-century European court inherited from its predecessors a rich vein of fantasy, expressed in a continuum from extravagantly painted allegorical ceilings to ceremonial activities that involved the ruler and his family and attendants in a theatricality that transformed even the most mundane aspects of life. Almost all of this theatricality could involve the presence of blacks, either...

Author

David Bindman (Editor), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Editor)

PublisherHarvard University Press

Subjects: Blacks in artSlavery in artCourts and courtiers

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

Get access

2. Between Court and City: Fantasies in Transition

David Bindman and Bruce Boucher and Helen Weston

The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume III: From the “Age of Discovery” to the Age of Abolition, Part 3: The Eighteenth Century

This chapter is concerned with the way in which courtly fantasies involving blacks and Africa were absorbed and adapted by the increasingly self-confident urban populations emerging in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in London and Paris in particular. If the court remained the dominant cultural force in Italy, in Germany (whether Catholic or Protestant principalities), and in...

Author

David Bindman (Editor), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Editor)

PublisherHarvard University Press

Subjects: Blacks in artSlavery in artCourts and courtiers

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

Get access

3. Court and City: Fantasies of Domination

David Bindman and Helen Weston

The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume III: From the “Age of Discovery” to the Age of Abolition, Part 3: The Eighteenth Century

Like other forms of luxury associated with court life and display, ownership of black pages and body servants became increasingly available...

Author

David Bindman (Editor), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Editor)

PublisherHarvard University Press

Subjects: Blacks in artSlavery in artCourts and courtiers

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

Get access

4. The City Between Fantasy and Reality

David Bindman and Helen Weston and Paul Kaplan

The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume III: From the “Age of Discovery” to the Age of Abolition, Part 3: The Eighteenth Century

In the eighteenth century black people became an increasingly familiar part of the urban scene, especially in northern European countries and North America. Those who inhabited the fluid world of the city were, with few exceptions, either slaves or former slaves or descended from an ancestor freed from service. In all but a few cases they were at the least privileged end of society, obliged to...

Author

David Bindman (Editor), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Editor)

PublisherHarvard University Press

Subjects: Blacks in artSlavery in artCourts and courtiers

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

Get access

5. Africa and the Slave Trade

David Bindman and Charles Ford and Helen Weston

The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume III: From the “Age of Discovery” to the Age of Abolition, Part 3: The Eighteenth Century

The conventions of representation that governed allegorical painting and views of African tribal life could hardly be more different from each other, yet an allegory of Africa could sometimes contain more information...

Author

David Bindman (Editor), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Editor)

PublisherHarvard University Press

Subjects: Blacks in artSlavery in artImperialism

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

Get access

6. The Slave Colonies

Charles Ford and Thomas Cummins and Rosalie Smith McCrea

The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume III: From the “Age of Discovery” to the Age of Abolition, Part 3: The Eighteenth Century

The purchase of slaves in Africa was, as we have seen, infrequently depicted in the eighteenth century. But the acquisition of slaves was only the initial stage of the process of enslavement. From Africa the slaves were transported in large numbers in ships adapted for the purpose to colonies—the dreaded Middle Passage—and if they survived the journey, they were put to work on...

Author

David Bindman (Editor), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Editor)

PublisherHarvard University Press

Subjects: Blacks in artSlavery in artImperialism

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

Get access