Alessandro de’ Medici, the Duke of Florence from 1530 to 1537, is forever immortalized in his portraits by Agnolo di Cosimo, aka, Agnolo Bronzino. Alessandro is fascinating to me, not just because he is widely thought to be the illegitimate son of Pope Clement VII, or because of how handsome he is, but because he was the first black ruler in Europe, and I had never heard of him until now. Black subjects are nearly unheard of in what we know as “classical art”. To see a Black subject – one who is not portrayed as a servant, or as some kind of inhuman creature – is rare in art history. Even more rare is a painting of a Black nobleman. Alessandro’s portrait is even more interesting when we look at its painter. Bronzino is a nickname referring to bronze coloring. While some historians think the nickname could have been referring to his reddish “bronze” hair, others think it was referring to his skin tone – meaning he was mixed. Suddenly, we have a Black diplomat painted by a Black painter in, of all places, Renaissance Italy.

Alessandro de’ Medici’s portrait is one positive example in the strange history of Black representation in art history. Art history, firstly, is largely Eurocentric. Black people were making art at the same time that Europeans were, but are almost entirely left out of art discourse. Black artists went uncredited, and their own unique forms of art such as pottery, beadwork, or metal casting, were not seen as true art. As Black artists emerged in the Americas, their art became harder and harder to ignore or destroy. Much of our information on Black artists emerges from America and American slavery, but that doesn’t mean that Black people didn’t appear in European art. They were simultaneously stereotyped, venerated, ignored and represented in paintings of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, which shows us the complicated history of Africans in Europe.

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Racism, obviously, made its appearance in European art. In many paintings where Black people are featured, they are in roles of servitude – mostly as slaves, domestic servants, or apprentices. In the Titan painting Diana and Actaeon, a Black servant woman rushes to cover up the Goddess Diana when Actaeon stumbles in on her bathing. You can barely see the servant, who is relegated to the corner of the frame and painted to blend in with the trees. She stands out not just because she’s the only Black person in the painting, but also because she’s the only clothed woman.

Renaissance painters were heavily interested in skin colors, and exaggerated the white, “pure”, yet also “sensual” color of Diana and her friends to contrast the skin color of the Black servant. She is Black to contrast the “purity” of the other women in the painting, and clothed to represent her “lack of sexuality”. This was a common way to depict Black women at the time, but contradictingly, so was grotesque fetishization. African women were sometimes exoticized in European art, with an exaggeration on their lips, hips, and nude bodies. Even more common were to fashion Black men and women into ornamental objects. Things like door knockers or gravy boats were made to look like disembodied African heads, fortifying the idea that Black people were property.

At about the same time however, places like Rome and Portugal had communities of wealthy Ethiopians or Congolese, which are reflected in paintings like The King’s Fountain. In this painting, Africans are seen living in harmony with white Europeans, and having the social capital to ride horses and go on boat rides. In paintings depicting the Magi (the three Wise Men who visited Jesus when he was born), it was a common convention during the Renaissance to depict one of the Magi as an African King. Paintings like The Three Mulattoes of Esmeraldas or Portrait of a Wealthy African show that there were a decent percentage of Africans that prospered in Europe. They were wealthy, respected, and often, leaders of their communities.

In the Baroque period, European art more heavily depicted Black people in roles of servitude or left them out completely, likely because Europe was no longer trading as much with Africa. Ideas about race had gone backwards, but a few Black people were able to occupy noble positions. Take Juan de Pareja. Pareja was a slave under the painter Diego Velazquez until his freedom in 1650. He had the unique ability to pursue his gift of painting during his enslavement, and was even a professionally trained artist in Sicily before he was traded off to Velazquez. He represents the countless Black artists of the past that were never afforded the opportunity to follow their passions. Tucked away in the corner of his painting The Calling of St. Matthew, Pareja paints himself facing the viewer. Perhaps he wanted to show other Black people that they belonged in art, or perhaps he wanted to show the world that despite what they may have learned, Black people existed in noble places.

The Neoclassicism period, which coincided with American slavery, marked the first time that Black artists were recognized. Unlike previous art periods, we have records of artists, their subjects, and their works. One such artist is Robert Duncanson – the son of freed slaves and the first Black person ever to have his art exhibited internationally. He was a landscape painter, and was known as the “best landscape painter in the West” in the American media. Joshua Jhonson is another example. He was likely a self-taught painter, and created portraits for the upper class in his unique style. Although not much is known about him, he was successful enough to have bought a few different homes in Baltimore, and proudly advertised the fact that he had overcome great obstacles to be able to pursue his passion.

Black people are hard to find in history. Their legacies have been erased, their accomplishments were never recorded. A lot of our understanding of Black history is rooted in whiteness and sadness. For this reason, there is such an emphasis on what Black people have not been able to achieve, and not enough focus on what they have achieved. Art serves as a way to understand the past. No matter how much their successes have been concealed, art gives us a glimpse into Black life, and allows us to know that throughout time, Black people have always been there.

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