Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
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Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
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Identification and Creation

Object Number
2023.184
People
Agostino Brunias, Italian (Rome, Italy 1730 - 1796 Roseau, Dominica)
Title
Purchasing Fruit [A French Mulatress Purchasing Fruit from a Negro Wench]
Other Titles
Former Title: French Mulatress Purchasing Fruit from a Negro Wench
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
c. 1765-1790
Culture
Italian
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/228453

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
29.7 × 22.8 cm (11 11/16 × 9 in.)
framed: 35.2 × 28.7 cm (13 7/8 × 11 5/16 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • inscription: verso of frame, top, graphite, partialy obscured by label remnants but visible under IR: No 6 / A French Native [Woman?] purchasing Fruit from a Negro Wench
  • label: verso of frame, upper left, fragment, printed: Case......... / [torn] AR [torn] / [torn] HE [torn]
  • label: verso, top left of frame and strainer [removed]: [printed:] Case...................... Shelf...................... / LIBRARY / OF THE / Peabody Museum of American Archæology and Ethnology / IN CONNECTION WITH HARVARD UNIVERSITY / [handwritten, black ink:] Deposited / [printed and crossed out in handwritten black ink:] PRESENTED [printed:] BY / [handwritten, black ink:] Harvard College Library. / [printed:] Received [handwritten, black ink:] Jan. 22, 1890.
  • label: verso, upper left of strainer, fragment, printed: [torn] SE [torn] / [torn] ived
  • inscription: verso, center of top strainer, graphite: No 6
  • inscription: verso, top of right strainer, black ink: Brunias pinxit
  • inscription: verso, inside right strainer, black ink: 975-5 30/9416 C.
  • label: verso, center of canvas, handwritten, black ink: Painted by Brunias, / an eminent French Artist. / Presented by John Gardner, Esq., of Pownalboro', / in 1790. / This is one of six Paintings by Brunias, / representing the People of different color in some of / the Islands in the West Indies.
  • label: verso, lower strainer, handwritten [or printed?], black ink: A French [torn] ltee [illegible] [torn] hasing Fr [torn] from a Negro Wench / Brunias pinxit

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
John Gardiner (or Gardner) (1737-1793), Pownalborough, Maine, by 1790, gift; to Harvard College Library, 1790, deposited; at Peabody Museum, 1890, acquired; by Peabody Museum, 1975, transferred; to Harvard Art Museums, 2023

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Transfer from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University (transfer from Harvard College Library), gift of John Gardiner, 1790
Accession Year
2023
Object Number
2023.184
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Harvard Corporation, Meeting of the President and Fellows of Harvard College (Harvard University Archives, November 15, 1790)., p. 303 [https://nrs.lib.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.arch:10884876?n=359 (accessed February 23, 2023)]
  • Beth Fowkes Tobin, Picturing Imperial Power: Colonial Subjects in Eighteenth-Century British Painting, Duke University Press (Durham, 1999), pp. 31-35, repr. p. 159 as fig. 33
  • Kay Dian Kriz, Slavery, Sugar, and the Culture of Refinement: Picturing the British West Indies, 1700-1840, Yale University Press (New Haven, 2008), p. 66, repro. p. 67 as fig. 35
  • Mia L. Bagneris, Agostino Brunias: Capturing the Carribean (c.1770-1800), exh. cat., Robilant + Voena (London, 2010), pp. 17, 34 note 3, repr. pp. 18 as fig. 9, 35 as fig. 18
  • Ethan Lasser, ed., The Philosophy Chamber: Art and Science in Harvard’s Teaching Cabinet, 1766–1820, exh. cat., Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2017), pp. 27-28 in Ethan W. Lasser's "Harvard's Teaching Cabinet," repr. p. 98 as pl. 34
  • Mia L. Bagneris, Colouring the Caribbean: Race and the art of Agostino Brunias, Manchester University Press (Manchester, UK, 2018), pp. 14, 32, 34 note 16, 91 note 96, 137-138, 175 notes 1 and 2, 185, 187, 211 note 7, repr. p. 105 as fig. 24

Exhibition History

Related Objects

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu