The African Presence in Iberian Art

Abstract

The African presence in early modern Iberia increased with the emergence of the transatlantic slave trade following the discoveries of the Americas from the middle of the fifteenth century. This article focuses on the visual representation of Africans in the Kingdom of Portugal and the Spanish Kingdoms of Aragon and Castile until the seventeenth century. It focuses on the depiction of urban enslaved and liberated Africans in the main cities of Lisbon and Seville, in religious compositions, as the most popular Adoration of the Magi and the violent Castilian iconography of The Miracle of the Black Leg and in portraiture.