Blog Post 3

The primary focus of my blog posts thus far has been on discovering the relationship portrayed in The Duchess of Portsmouth, along with gaining a better understanding of why the Duchess may have commissioned this painting. Although not very surprising to me, in my research I have discovered that while the Duchess is a well known figure, there are no identifying clues to gaining a better understanding of who the black child-servant is accompanying her. This servant, although appearing to be close to the Duchess, has no way of being better understood, and as such can only be said to be an ornament of the portrait, with any degree of certainty. Previously I had drawn a comparison between this painting and Titian’s portrait of Laura Dianti. Upon further research I also discovered many similarly devised portraits within eighteenth-century Britain, showing that this was not only a phenomenon within France, but actually was a widely accepted and continually practiced facet of art across the globe.

            The main aim of portraits for the British was to create a great enough contrast between the main objects of the portrait in comparison to a subordinate figure. The subordinate did not necessarily need to be of African descent, but as the popularity of the African slave trade increased, this trend likewise increased. The inclusion of an African servant was intended fully to assert a sense of power, prosperity, beauty, generosity, etc. to the primary person sitting for the portrait, depending upon what the person him/herself wanted to convey. One example of such a painting is An Unknown Man, perhaps Charles Goring of Wiston, out Shooting with his Servant, created in 1765 by an unknown artist. The painting (Figure 1) shows an African servant handing his master a woodcock, which from the context of the painting, one can surmise that the dog caught and is now being passed along to the master. Similarly to the Duchess of Portsmouth, his master, possibly indicating the existence of a genial relationship, is treating the servant in this portrait fondly. This further points to the reasoning behind why the servant is well dressed and not wearing a collar of any kind. At the time it would not have been seen as a portrait of the two men; however looking at it from a modern perspective, this could be seen as both a portrait of the master and servant. However, while the identity of the master in this portrait can be estimated to be either Charles Lennox or Charles Goring, based upon the context clues of colors of clothing being adorned by the master and servant, the servant remains anonymous and probably always will.

Figure 1

            Further exemplifying this type of portraiture is Bartholomew Dandridge’s A Young Girl with an Enslaved Servant and a Dog, created in 1725 (Figure 2). In the same way as the Duchess’s portrait, the center of the picture is this girl, as her servant and dog are both looking up at her. This also brings to mind the idea that eighteenth century Europeans would have held of white Europeans being at the top of a social hierarchy of sorts, with African slaves and animals ranking lower than them. By having both in her portrait, this young girl is marking herself as higher and different from the “other” category being portrayed. This contrast would have been utilized in an effort to create whatever image of herself she wanted put in to society.

Figure 2

References:

Chadwick, Esther, and Meredith Gamer. "Figures of Empire Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain." New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 2014: n. pag. Print.