Agostino Brunias (Italian, ca. 1730–1796). Free Women of Color with Their Children and Servants in a Landscape, ca. 1770–1796. Oil on canvas, 20 x 26 1/8 in. (50.8 x 66.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mrs. Carll H. de Silver in memory of her husband, by exchange and gift of George S. Hellman, by exchange, 2010.59 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2010.59_PS6.jpg)
Agostino Brunias (Italian, ca. 1730–1796). Free Women of Color with Their Children and Servants in a Landscape, ca. 1770–1796. Oil on canvas, 20 x 26 1/8 in. (50.8 x 66.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mrs. Carll H. de Silver in memory of her husband, by exchange and gift of George S. Hellman, by exchange, 2010.59 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2010.59_detail_PS6.jpg)
Free Women of Color with Their Children and Servants in a Landscape
Agostino Brunias
European Art
On View: American Art Galleries, 5th Floor, Radical Care
Commissioned by the British government, the Italian artist Agostino Brunias created a series of paintings capturing the complex social and racial hierarchies of plantation life on the newly acquired British island of Dominica. Here, on the grounds of a sugar plantation, two mixed-race sisters wearing European-style clothing appear at center alongside their mother (at left), two children, and eight African servants. Brunias signaled the women’s elite status based on subtleties of skin color and dress, as well as space, foregrounding them in a position typically occupied by white settlers in traditional British “conversation pieces” (informal group portraits). While this idyllic scene seemingly endorses the cultural and racial hybridity of the region, it also projects a colonial fantasy that erases enslaved labor.
MEDIUM
Oil on canvas
DATES
ca. 1770–1796
DIMENSIONS
20 x 26 1/8 in. (50.8 x 66.4 cm)
frame: 25 1/2 x 31 1/2 x 2 1/2 in. (64.8 x 80 x 6.4 cm) (show scale)
COLLECTIONS
European Art
ACCESSION NUMBER
2010.59
CREDIT LINE
Gift of Mrs. Carll H. de Silver in memory of her husband, by exchange and gift of George S. Hellman, by exchange
EXHIBITIONS
MUSEUM LOCATION
This item is on view in American Art Galleries, 5th Floor, Radical Care
CAPTION
Agostino Brunias (Italian, ca. 1730–1796). Free Women of Color with Their Children and Servants in a Landscape, ca. 1770–1796. Oil on canvas, 20 x 26 1/8 in. (50.8 x 66.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mrs. Carll H. de Silver in memory of her husband, by exchange and gift of George S. Hellman, by exchange, 2010.59 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2010.59_PS6.jpg)
IMAGE
overall, 2010.59_PS6.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2011
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