Black women in early modern European art and culture

Abstract

During the centuries from 1300 to 1700, representations of women of Black African descent in European artworks and literary texts encompass a wide array of roles. This chapter foregrounds visual depictions, but several important textual examples (from epic, lyric poetry, and drama) parallel and sometimes directly connect to images, and no clear separation of these realms is possible. The growing numbers of enslaved Africans arriving in Europe prompted an increasingly frequent representation of Black women in servile roles attending members of European elites. While some early works disparage the physical appearance of Black women, by the mid-sixteenth century, a competing concept of Black female beauty (with erotic overtones) develops. Cults of Black women saints appear in a few areas, and Black African women are also depicted as characters in ancient myth as well as in allegorical subjects such as the Four Continents. The burgeoning category of travel literature includes verbal and visual descriptions of women of color both in Africa and in the Americas. Works under discussion come from various European regions (Italy, Iberia, Germany, England, the Low Countries, and France), and some are by renowned artists, such as Andrea Mantegna, Albrecht Dürer, and Diego Velázquez.