{"id":11779,"date":"2011-03-04T20:19:21","date_gmt":"2011-03-04T20:19:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=11779"},"modified":"2013-04-24T03:57:36","modified_gmt":"2013-04-24T03:57:36","slug":"brooklyn-museum-acquires-eighteenth-century-painting-by-agostino-brunias-depicting-dominica-mixed-race-colonial-elite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=11779","title":{"rendered":"Brooklyn Museum Acquires Eighteenth-Century Painting by Agostino Brunias Depicting Dominica Mixed Race Colonial Elite"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brooklyn Museum Acquires Eighteenth-Century Painting by Agostino Brunias Depicting Dominica Mixed Race Colonial Elite<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Brooklyn Museum<\/a>
\n200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11238-6052
\nT(718) 638-5000, F(718) 501-6134
\nJanuary 2011<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Agostino Brunias<\/a> (Italian, ca. 1730-1796), Free Women of Color with their Children and Servants in a Landscape<\/em>, ca. 1764-1796, Oil on canvas, 2010.59, Gift of Mrs. Carll H. de Silver in memory of her husband, and gift of George S. Hellman, by exchange.<\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The Brooklyn Museum has acquired, by purchase from the London Gallery Robilant + Voena<\/a>, Agostino Brunias\u2019s<\/a> (1730\u201396) painting Free Women of Color with Their Children and Servants in a Landscape<\/em> (circa 1764\u201396), a portrait of the eighteenth-century mixed-race colonial elite of the island of Dominica<\/a> in the West Indies<\/a>. Brunias, a London<\/a>-based Italian<\/a> painter, left England<\/a> at the height of his career to chronicle Dominica<\/a>, then one of Britain\u2019s<\/a> newest colonies in the Lesser Antilles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The painting depicts two richly dressed mixed-race women, one of whom was possibly the wife of the artist\u2019s patron. They are shown accompanied by their mother and their children, along with eight African servants, as they walk on the grounds of a sugar plantation, one of the agricultural estates that were Dominica\u2019s chief source of wealth. Brunias documented colonial women of color as privileged and prosperous. The two wealthy sisters are distinguished from their mother and servants by their fitted European dresses.<\/p>\n

The painting is a Caribbean version of contemporaneous English works made popular by artists such as William Hogarth<\/a> and Thomas Gainsborough<\/a>, whose art often depicts the landed gentry engaged in leisurely pursuits. Free Women of Color with Their Children and Servants in a Landscape<\/em> and other Caribbean paintings by Brunias celebrate the diversity of European, Caribbean, and African influences in the region.<\/p>\n

Although Brunias was originally commissioned to promote upper-class plantation life, his works soon assumed a more subversive, political role throughout the Caribbean as endorsements of a free, anti-slavery society, exposing the artificialities of racial hierarchies in the West Indies. Among his supporters was Haiti\u2019s<\/a> liberator, Fran\u00e7ois-Dominique Toussaint L\u2019Ouverture<\/a>, who wore on his waistcoat eighteen buttons decorated with reproductions of Brunias\u2019s paintings.<\/p>\n

Free Women of Color with Their Children and Servants in a Landscape<\/em> will go on view on March 7, 2011, in the European galleries, on the portraiture wall between contemporaneous female Spanish colonial and French subjects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brooklyn Museum Acquires Eighteenth-Century Painting by Agostino Brunias Depicting Dominica Mixed Race Colonial Elite The Brooklyn Museum 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11238-6052 T(718) 638-5000, F(718) 501-6134 January 2011 Agostino Brunias (Italian, ca. 1730-1796), Free Women of Color with their Children and Servants in a Landscape, ca. 1764-1796, Oil on canvas, 2010.59, Gift of Mrs. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,21,459,8,6940,20,25],"tags":[2044,5230,5328,5327,5232,5228],"class_list":["post-11779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-latincarib","category-history","category-media-archive","category-slavery","category-usa","category-women","tag-agostino-brunias","tag-dominica","tag-melanie-white","tag-rich-aste","tag-richard-aste","tag-the-brooklyn-museum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}