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
2023.179
People
Agostino Brunias, Italian (Rome, Italy 1730 - 1796 Roseau, Dominica)
Title
Women of Color Bathing and a Voyeur [Mulatresses and Negro Woman Bathing]
Other Titles
Former Title: Mulatresses and Negro Woman Bathing
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
c. 1765-1790
Culture
Italian
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/228454

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
29.5 × 23 cm (11 5/8 × 9 1/16 in.)
framed: 35.2 × 28.7 cm (13 7/8 × 11 5/16 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • inscription: verso of frame, top, graphite: No 1
  • label: verso, right side of frame and strainer [removed]: [printed:] Case...................... Shelf...................... / LIBRARY / OF THE / Peabody Museum of American Archæology and Ethnology / IN CONNECTION WITH HARVARD UNIVERSITY / [printed and crossed out in handwritten black ink:] PRESENTED BY / [handwritten, black ink:] Deposited by / [handwritten, black ink:] Harvard College Library / [printed:] Received [handwritten, black ink:] Jan. 22, 1890.
  • inscription: verso, top strainer, black ink: Mulatresses & Negro Women / bathing.
  • inscription: verso, top of right strainer, black ink: Brunias / pinxit
  • inscription: verso, inside right strainer, black ink: 975-5 30/9416 D.
  • label: verso, lower strainer, handwritten [or printed?], black ink: Mulatresses, & Negro Woman Bathing / Brunias pinxit
  • 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.

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
2023.179
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), p. 149, repr. p. 150 as fig. as 29
  • Mia L. Bagneris, Agostino Brunias: Capturing the Carribean (c.1770-1800), exh. cat., Robilant + Voena (London, 2010), p. 9, repr. as fig. 1
  • David Bindman, Representing Race in the Eighteenth-Century Caribbean, Eighteenth-Century Studies, John Hopkins University Press (2017), Volume 51, Number 1, p. 9, repr. p.10 as fig. 3
  • 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. pp. 28 as fig. 20b, 99 as pl. 35
  • Mia L. Bagneris, Colouring the Caribbean: Race and the art of Agostino Brunias, Manchester University Press (Manchester, UK, 2018), pp. 14, 34 note 16, 91 note 96, 136-137, 143, 147-165, 169-173, 185, 187, 211 note 7, repr. p.137 as fig. 35

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