2024-03-29T09:13:58Zhttp://harvester-bl.britishart.yale.edu/oaicatmuseum/OAIHandleroai:tms.ycba.yale.edu:79402024-03-27ycba:pd
YCBA/lido-TMS-7940
http://www.cidoc-crm.org/cidoc-crm/E22_Human-Made_Object
Human-Made Object
300033973
drawing
300139140
genre subject
300015637
portrait
300033973
Drawing & Watercolor
Woman Holding a Mask
[2014, Figures of Empire, exhibition catalogue]
A Lady Holding a Negro Mask
500303557
Yale Center for British Art
http://britishart.yale.edu
B1977.14.6285
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q106814610
Not on view
Yale Center for British Art
41.3080060, -72.9306282
13 1/4 × 10 1/2 inches (33.7 × 26.7 cm)
width
cm
26.7
height
cm
33.7
Sheet
16 7/8 × 14 1/8 × 1 1/4 inches (42.9 × 35.9 × 3.2 cm)
height
cm
42.9
width
cm
35.9
depth
cm
3.2
Frame
7940
300054713
production
John Raphael Smith, 1752–1812, British
ycba_actor_806
https://viaf.org/viaf/79202309
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n83013596
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2470482
http://vocab.getty.edu/ulan/500116497
https://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6699rkx
http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/25/101025863/
John Raphael Smith
J. R. Smith
Smith John Raphael, 1752–1812
John Raphael Smith, 1752–1812
John Raphael Smith, 1752–1812
British
1752
1812
male
300025103
Artist
300111159
British
between 1795 and 1800
1795
1800
23
18th century-19th century
Pastel on medium, moderately textured, wove paper
300014187
wove paper
300122621
pastel
Figures of Empire: Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain (Yale Center for British Art, 2014-10-02 - 2014-12-14)
845
https://britishart.yale.edu/node/604
300054766
exhibition
Figures of Empire: Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain
Yale Center for British Art
Yale Center for British Art
ycba_actor_1281
https://viaf.org/viaf/155449049
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n77005277
http://vocab.getty.edu/ulan/500303557
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6352575
Yale Center for British Art
YCBA
BAC
British Art Center
1977
0
63
Organizer
2014-10-02 - 2014-12-14
2014-10-02
2014-12-14
Yale Center for British Art
ycba_actor_1281
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n77005277
http://vocab.getty.edu/ulan/500303557
https://viaf.org/viaf/155449049
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6352575
Yale Center for British Art
New Haven
7014210
New Haven
300435424
The rise of the British Empire during the eighteenth century, fueled by enslaved labor on plantations in the North Atlantic world, contributed to a period of economic and cultural growth in Britain. It also brought unprecedented numbers of Africans and people of African and African-Caribbean descent, both enslaved and free, to the British mainland. Figures of Empire explored the impact of these developments on the most ubiquitous artistic genre of the time: the portrait. — —
In eighteenth-century Britain, portraits were a principal means of self-representation. Sitters conveyed information about themselves in a variety of ways—through clothing, setting, props, and often also in relation to subordinate figures, such as servants or slaves. In many cases, these figures were modeled after life; however, in the eighteenth century, they were rarely recognized as subjects in their own right. By contrast, this exhibition challenged the viewer to consider all of the figures depicted within a given portrait as individuals with histories and as “figures of empire”—as people whose lives were shaped by British imperialism and the institution of transatlantic slavery. Figures of Empire asked visitors to think again about what exactly a portrait is and how the answer to this question might change over time.
The exhibition featured more than sixty paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and decorative objects. Loans from neighboring Yale institutions also enriched the display, but the majority of works were selected from the Center’s own holdings to contextualize the collection in new ways. Titles of artworks were changed to reflect the presence of all figures pictured. — —
Interviews with artists and curatorial and academic scholars, accessible as an interactive presentation in the exhibition and online, helped to place these works of art in a contemporary context. In addition, a series of related programs, including lectures, exhibitions, a conference, and film screening, took place across Yale University. Highlights included a pendant exhibition, Prospects of Empire: Slavery and Ecology in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain, at the Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington, Connecticut, and a major international conference that was planned in partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, titled “Visualizing Slavery and British Culture in the Eighteenth Century.” — —
Credits — —
Figures of Empire: Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain was organized by the Center and curated by Esther Chadwick and Meredith Gamer, PhD candidates in the Department of the History of Art at Yale University, and Cyra Levenson, Associate Curator of Education at the Yale Center for British Art.
Yale Center for British Art
English Portrait Drawings & Miniatures (Yale Center for British Art, 1979-12-05 - 1980-02-17)
571
300054766
exhibition
English Portrait Drawings & Miniatures
Yale Center for British Art
Yale Center for British Art
ycba_actor_1281
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6352575
http://vocab.getty.edu/ulan/500303557
https://viaf.org/viaf/155449049
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n77005277
Yale Center for British Art
YCBA
BAC
British Art Center
1977
0
63
Organizer
1979-12-05 - 1980-02-17
1979-12-05
1980-02-17
Yale Center for British Art
ycba_actor_1281
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n77005277
http://vocab.getty.edu/ulan/500303557
https://viaf.org/viaf/155449049
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6352575
Yale Center for British Art
New Haven
7014210
New Haven
7940
9770522
N8217.B535 I42 2010+ (YCBA)
555658364
2162
300054686
publication event
David Bindman, ^The Image of the Black in Western Art : From the " Age of Discovery" to the Age of Abolition, ^, vol. 3, part 3, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2010, pp. 171-72, 173, fig. 165, N8217.B535 I42 2010+ (YCBA) Citations are to Vol. 3, Part 3
Yale Center for British Art
David Bindman
ycba_actor_1353
Bindman David
300025526
editor
Henry Louis Gates
ycba_actor_11031
Gates Henry Louis
300025526
editor
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
ycba_actor_9681
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
300025574
Publisher
2010
2010
2010
Cambridge, Mass.
7940
12274873
V 2556 (YCBA)
893872810
3366
300054686
publication event
^Figures of Empire : Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain, ^, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2014, pp. 33, 44, V 2556 (YCBA) Also available online: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://britishart.yale.edu/sites/default/files/inline/Figures%20of%20Empire_booklet_FINAL.pdf
Yale Center for British Art
Esther Chadwick
ycba_actor_12091
Chadwick Esther
300403974
contributor
Meredith Gamer
ycba_actor_12092
Gamer Meredith
300403974
contributor
Cyra Levenson
ycba_actor_12093
Levenson Cyra
300403974
contributor
Yale Center for British Art
ycba_actor_1281
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n77005277
http://vocab.getty.edu/ulan/500303557
https://viaf.org/viaf/155449049
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6352575
Yale Center for British Art
300025574
Publisher
2014
2014
2014
New Haven
7940
12623451
Available online
3550
300054686
publication event
^Slavery and Portraiture in 18th-century Atlantic Britain, [Website] ^, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2015, Available online [[https://interactive.britishart.yale.edu/slavery-and-portraiture/]]
Yale Center for British Art
Yale Center for British Art
ycba_actor_1281
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n77005277
http://vocab.getty.edu/ulan/500303557
https://viaf.org/viaf/155449049
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6352575
Yale Center for British Art
300025574
Publisher
2015
2015
2015
New Haven
7940
300157782
acquisition
Yale Center for British Art
ycba_actor_1281
YCBA
BAC
Yale Center for British Art
British Art Center
1977
0
300203630
Owner
1977-01-01
1977-01-01
1977-01-01
300138913
gift
This young woman is dressed for a masquerade. Over her white dress is a black “domino,” or voluminous hooded cape. She holds a mask that bears the stereotyped features of a black man or woman with conspicuously pink lips and cheeks. When the mask was pressed to her face, and the hood was up, the woman’s identity would be completely disguised. As fashionable fancy-dress entertainments, masquerades reached the height of their popularity in Britain in the 1770s and 1780s. Guests wore costumes that transgressed boundaries of gender, culture, class, and—as in this instance—race. Sometimes white men and women attended as “blackamoors” or Africans. In 1770, one man was seen “in the character of Mungo.”\n\n
John Raphael Smith—who also published the paired antislavery prints displayed in the previous room—established a reputation for his female genre subjects, including depictions of actresses and prostitutes, which he exhibited at the Royal Academy and published as prints. By the 1790s he was also advertising “portraits in crayons” (i.e., pastels). Whether this pastel was intended as a portrait or a more generic image, it staged feminine whiteness through the juxtaposition of its perceived opposite. It did so at a moment when new biological theories of human difference were laying foundations for the scientific racism that would underpin colonialism and social inequality in the nineteenth century and beyond.\n\n
Gallery label for Figures of Empire: Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain (Yale Center for British Art, 2014-10-02 - 2014-12-14)
7940
300048722
Gallery label
2014
This young woman is dressed for a masquerade. Over her white dress is a black “domino,” or voluminous hooded cape. She holds a mask that bears the stereotyped features of a black man or woman with conspicuously pink lips and cheeks. When the mask was pressed to her face, and the hood was up, the woman’s identity would be completely disguised. As fashionable fancy-dress entertainments, masquerades reached the height of their popularity in Britain in the 1770s and 1780s. Guests wore costumes that transgressed boundaries of gender, culture, class, and—as in this instance—race. Sometimes white men and women attended as “blackamoors” or Africans. In 1770, one man was seen “in the character of Mungo.”\n\n
John Raphael Smith—who also published the paired antislavery prints displayed in the previous room—established a reputation for his female genre subjects, including depictions of actresses and prostitutes, which he exhibited at the Royal Academy and published as prints. By the 1790s he was also advertising “portraits in crayons” (i.e., pastels). Whether this pastel was intended as a portrait or a more generic image, it staged feminine whiteness through the juxtaposition of its perceived opposite. It did so at a moment when new biological theories of human difference were laying foundations for the scientific racism that would underpin colonialism and social inequality in the nineteenth century and beyond.\n\n
Esther Chadwick, Meredith Gamer, and Cyra Levenson\n\n
Figures of Empire: Slavery and Portraiture in eighteenth-century Atlantic Britain, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2014, p. 33, V 2556 (YCBA)
7940
300111999
Published catalog entry
2014
300139140
ycba_term_2036211
genre subject
300007117
ycba_term_47909
theatre
300011827
ycba_term_32545
pearls
300138758
ycba_term_143565
mask
300015637
ycba_term_32667
portrait
300025943
ycba_term_35295
woman
David Bindman, The Image of the Black in Western Art : From the " Age of Discovery" to the Age of Abolition, , vol. 3, part 3, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2010, pp. 171-72, 173, fig. 165, N8217.B535 I42 2010+ (YCBA) Citations are to Vol. 3, Part 3
9770522
N8217.B535 I42 2010+ (YCBA)
555658364
2162
related to
Figures of Empire : Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2014, pp. 33, 44, V 2556 (YCBA) Also available online: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://britishart.yale.edu/sites/default/files/inline/Figures%20of%20Empire_booklet_FINAL.pdf
12274873
V 2556 (YCBA)
893872810
3366
related to
Slavery and Portraiture in 18th-century Atlantic Britain, [Website], Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2015, Available online https://interactive.britishart.yale.edu/slavery-and-portraiture/
12623451
Available online
3550
related to
300055603
500303557
Yale Center for British Art
https://britishart.yale.edu
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
300055598
Public Domain
300435434
https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
7940
300133025
Item
500303557
Yale Center for British Art
http://britishart.yale.edu
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:7940
oai:tms.ycba.yale.edu:7940
https://manifests.collections.yale.edu/v2/ycba/obj/7940
https://manifests.collections.yale.edu/ycba/obj/7940
IIIF manifest
Yale Center for British Art
500303557
Yale Center for British Art