Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Revealing the African Presence: Study of Katharina

"..., the importation of Africans into Europe as slaves, from markets in West and also North Africa, gradually supplanted the trade in slaves of Circassian or Slavic origin. The result was a growing African presence in Europe, some of the evidence for which is found exclusively in the visual arts. For example, the distinctly individualized portraits of [the] black men incorporated by Gerard David into his Adoration of the Kings ..., establish their presence in Antwerp around 1515, probably initially as slaves of Portuguese merchants, as was Katharina ... drawn there in 1521."
Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe, pgs. 9-10

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