In , the Italian-born painter Agostino Brunias (c–) arrived in the West Indies having travelled on the ship of the sugar plantation owner and Governor of Dominica, Sir William Young.
By establishing himself as a 'colonial painter' in the tropical archipelago of the Caribbean in the s, Brunias romanticised the slave labour and leisurely activities of a multicultural, creolised society under the British Empire. Yet he also painted black and mixed-race subjects with a kind of dignity and reverence rarely seen before in European art history.
So how did Brunias' rose-tinted paintings of life on British sugar plantations come into existence? And how should we frame, analyse and judge them in today's context?
Born in Rome in around , Brunias studied at the Accademia di San Luca before moving to England in under the employment of the Scottish Neoclassical architect Robert Adam. Departing London in as the personal painter to Sir William Young, Brunias worked and voyaged between the British-controlled Caribbean islands until his death in (although records show that he returned to England for some time in ).
A historically conflicted territory, many islands of the Caribbean came
Representing Race in the Eighteenth-Century Caribbean: Brunias in Dominica and St Vincent
Representing Race in the Eighteenth-Century Caribbean: Brunias in Dominica and St Vincent David Bindman Eighteenth-Century Studies, Volume 51, Number 1, Fall , pp. (Article) Published by Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: For additional information about this article Access provided at 26 Oct GMT with no institutional affiliation Bindman / Representing Race in the Eighteenth-Century Caribbean 1 REPRESENTING RACE IN THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARIBBEAN: BRUNIAS IN DOMINICA AND ST VINCENT David Bindman If one lives in London the British West Indies can seem to be a single place, a kind of archipelago in the Caribbean with all the islands clustered together.1 Everyone reading this essay will know how completely wrong that is. Jamaica is the most populous formerly British island but it is over one thousand miles from Trinidad and Barbados, and from the Lesser Antilles islands of Dominica, St Vincent, Antigua, and St Kitts. The nearest big island to Jamaica is Cuba, which in turn is close to Haiti and Saint-Domingue. The Guyanas are actually on the South American mainland, and Trinidad is less th
Free West Indian Dominicans
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Agostino BruniasItalian
Not on view
Agostino Brunias’ West Indian paintings offer sanitized images of slavery, but the textiles worn by his subjects are rendered in fine detail and correspond with many firsthand European accounts. Well-to-do whites and free persons of color had access to the latest European modes, setting them apart from the enslaved. Yet, even among enslaved persons there existed a social hierarchy articulated, in no small part, by clothing. In the background of the scene of the three women, a laboring man pushing a barrel wears nothing but breeches while a boy seated in the foreground is dressed in a complete outfit, suggesting he works in the main house rather than the fields.
A distinctive Creole style developed in the region as European fashions were integrated with African modes such as the head wrap, worn by nearly all women regardless of race or social status. Weekly markets throughout the Cari
Linen Market, Dominica
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Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Agostino BruniasItalian
Not on view
The Italian-born painter Brunias traveled to the British West Indies in at the invitation of the colonial governor. Drawing upon his travels, Brunias later produced highly idealized images of everyday life in the Caribbean that appealed to the enslavers and colonial officials who employed him. At the same time, his paintings reveal the emergence of a complex, multiracial society with distinct cultural practices. In this market scene, for example, women of varying backgrounds have all adopted the head wrap, a distinctly Caribbean fashion with African origins.
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Title:Linen Market, Dominica
Artist:Agostino Brunias (Italian, Rome ca. – Roseau, Dominica)
Date:ca.
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions 5/8 × 27 in. ( × cm)
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