Blog Post 3

Blog Post 3

In my previous blog post I wrote about how elite women used African slaves in portraiture as a status marker.  The portrait of Mademoiselle de Clermont in Mademoiselle de Clermont, Princess of the Blood, as a Sultana, Served by some Slaves is a clear indicator of how African slaves, because of their race, are used as indicator of status.  By being portrayed with slaves women were able to stay within gender roles of this time will still asserting her dominance and control.                                

As benefactors of the arts elite women had much control over the representation of their own images when it came to their portraiture.  This meant they used the visual arts to assert their own positions socially.  Examining certain portraits of elite women painted with African slaves suggests how race was perceived in culture and used for hierarchal standing (Palmer 245).  Hierarchy of the elite and the African servants is blatantly expressed through the visible wealth of the elite, each ones skin tone and the positioning of each individual.  This means in portraits race could advance an individual as well as degrade them. 

Another example of portraiture is Mademoiselle de Blois and Mademoiselle de Nantes.  This portrait just likes the others has the presence of the well-dressed African servant.  The painting itself gives the viewers signs that reveal the status of the African servants and their relationships with the white women they accompany, and that show their position as firmly inferior (Palmer 245).  The elite women’s size in the portrait gives the first indication of their role in the portraits; the African servant is all significantly smaller than the white women.  Another factor is although the African servant is at the very center of the portrait the slave is not the main focus of the painting.  The clothing of the African servant is also made of expensive material, but it is less elaborate than the dresses of the elite women, another influence aiding in this argument.  And once again the black attendant gazes adoringly at the white mistress, suggesting that her great beauty inspires her.

The contrast in these portraits does show off the elite women to a greater advantage.  If interpreting the combination of white women and black slaves as solely an aesthetic choice meant to highlight beauty then does not adequately address why this became such a prevalent visual choice or that women frequently chose to have themselves represented within its framework, or how viewers understood it (Palmer 249).

In commissioning portraits with African servants, elite white women demonstrated their awareness that they had an interest in creating a visual hierarchy based on racial difference.  These paintings, which focus on white women, certainly shed light on conceptions of gender.  However, the prominent inclusion of the African slaves also makes these paintings about race.  In conclusion royal white women had an interest in creating a visual hierarchy based on the aesthetics of skin color.  In comparing themselves favorably to people of color they emphasized their dominance and authority over race. 

David W. Cohen and Jack P. Greene, Neither Slave nor Free: The Freedman of African Descent in the Slave Societies of the New World (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972), pp. 134–71 

Jennifer L. Palmer, ‘The Princess Served by Slaves: Making Race Visible through Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century France’ Gender & History, Vol.26 No.2 August 2014, pp. 242–262.