Revealing the African Presence: Vittore Carpaccio

"The practice in Renaissance Europe of manumitting slaves during their lifetimes had important consequences for the representation of Africans in whatever media in the Renaissance. Although African -- especially black African -- attendants and bystanders in European depictions (except in some parts of Northern Europe) are usually assumed to be slaves, in most cases legal status is not apparent and cannot be discerned from an image. In Venice, a niche occupation for freed black Africans existed, linked to their prior skills as slaves, and possibly also to their prior lives in West Africa: that of gondolier. Two iconic Venetian Renaissance paintings, Vittore Carpaccio's Miracle of the True Cross at the Rialto Bridge, also known as The Healing of the Possessed Man, of 1494, which includes two black gondoliers, and his Hunting on the Lagoon of ca. 1490-1495, which includes a couple of black boatmen, show black Africans at work in water activities, but there is no way of telling whether they are enslaved or free."

Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe, pg. 14.

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See Carpaccio's Miracle of the True Cross at the Rialto Bridge, also known as The Healing of the Possessed Man, of 1494 at

http://pictify.com/374980/vittore-carpaccio-the-miracle-of-the-relic-of-the-true-cross-on-the-rialto-bridge

and see Carpaccio's Hunting on the Lagoon at

http://www.getty.edu/museum/research/provenance/provResearch?handle=plid&id=801