Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe

Bringing together objects as diverse as paintings, marble and bronze sculpture, cameos, drawings, books, and prints, Revealing the African Presence in Rennaissance Europe tells through works of art the stories of European perceptions of Africa in the Renaissance, of the Africans who came to Europe in capacities ranging from slaves to high-level diplomats, and of the people of African extraction among the European religious figures and rulers of the time. While scholars have been slowly piecing together this history, this is the first exhibition to make available to a wide American audience the results in this exciting field of inquiry. New York Times critic Holland Cotter praised the exhibition as “convention-rattling,” “fresh with historical news,” and “as much about questions as answers.”

Among the outstanding objects on view is a posthumous portrait of Alessandro de’ Medici (1510–1537), painted by Agnolo Bronzino after his master Alessandro Allori’s lost portrait from life, on loan from the Museo degli Uffizi in Florence. Alessandro de’ Medici, a member of the powerful Florentine ruling family, was, until his assassination, the tyrant of Florence. It is less well known that he was the illegitimate son of the future Pope Clement VII and an African servant. Alessandro’s own illegitimate daughter, Giulia de’ Medici, appears in a portrait by the Florentine artist Pontormo, on loan from the Walters Art Museum. It is Giulia’s portrait, the first European portrait of an African-European child, that launched curator Joaneath Spicer’s research for this exhibition over a decade ago. Other loans come from the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, the Arms and Armor Department at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, the Morgan Library and Museum, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and private collections, both domestic and foreign.

Betsy J. Rosasco
Research Curator of European Painting and Sculpture