Research
Oil on canvas.
Provenance:
Michael Hogg Gallery, Knightsbridge, London 1967.
Philadelphia Private Collection.
In this most unusual painting dating from the beginning of the 18th century, an elaborately dressed black artist paints a portrait of Maria Anna of Austria, Queen of Portugal (1683-1754), in a small interior with a cityscape beyond. There is an unquestionable likeness of the sitter with an 18th century portrait of this queen by Pompeo Batoni in the collection of the Ajuda National Palace, and a second early-18th century depiction by an unknown artist.
The painting belongs to a very small body of works in which black subjects are depicted in ‘scholarly’ and artistic roles, as distinct from paintings where they are shown in a subservient manner, offering food or presenting a garment, and thus acting as emblems of their owner’s wealth and sophisticated taste. The work immortalizes a slave artist at his work and thus represents an exceedingly rare piece of pictorial evidence of this “relatively benign form of racial integration and social toleration, which enabled individuals of African descent to fulfill the role of ‘artists.’”
The origin of the present painting is as yet uncertain, however, several leading art scholars have pointed to a likely Brazilian origin on stylistic grounds.
Full research report available on request.