In 1800, a Black woman posed for an artwork. Her portrait marked a turning point in the history of painting.
Who was the Black Mona Lisa?
Little is known about the model of the painting often considered as the Black Mona Lisa of the Louvre. Madeleine is believed to have been born into enslavement in Guadeloupe in the 18th century, and to have been freed and then employed as a domestic servant by a couple of colonists, to whom the female painter Marie-Guillemine Benoist was closely related.
Marie-Guillemine Benoist was a French neoclassical, historical, and genre painter, and a pupil of the portraitist Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, then of Jacques-Louis David
How is Madeleine portrayed in her portrait?
The painting, which is on display at the Louvre under the title Portrait of a Black Woman, is revolutionary in its representation of a Black model.
For the first time, a proud and beautiful Black woman is the sole subject of a work, free of the racial clichés of the time, and posing in the style of Raphael's famous Fornarina.
The colours of Madeleine’s outfit - red, white and blue - subtly evoke the significance of the abolition of enslavement voted for on 4 February 1794 by the French National Convention.
The Louvre describes the painting as follows:
The female model, aged between 20 and 40, is depicted in a half-length portrait format, in front of a plain light grey wall, with no indication of spatial depth. Her face and eyes are turned towards the viewer, her body is positioned sideways, seated on a Louis XVI-style cabriolet armchair, made of gilded wood and upholstered in green fabric secured with upholstery nails. The back and right armrest of the chair are almost completely covered by a large blue shawl draped over them. The young woman wears a white headscarf wrapped and tied high on her head, with one end left loose, falling down her left cheek. A gold ring is visible in her right ear. Her arms and chest are almost entirely bare: the model appears to have untied and cut away her white shirt dress, which is still held at the waist by a red fabric belt. Her right hand rests on her knees, her left hand is folded against her stomach. The artist's signature is placed on the grey background, just above the model's right hand.
Why is the portrait of Madeleine important?
The canvas was exhibited in Paris in 1800, Versailles in 1801, and purchased by the Ministry of the King's Household along with three other paintings at a price of 11,000 francs for the set in 1818. It was restored in 1825 and has been displayed at the Louvre since at least 1830. During the Second World War, it was carefully placed in storage, and returned to the Louvre in 1946.
Long known only to specialists, it is now an icon of world art. It is one of the most popular paintings in the Louvre Museum, celebrated by Jay Z and Beyoncé in their 2018 music video filmed in the museum, Apeshit, and by the 2019 exhibition Le Modèle Noir at the Musée d'Orsay, where it was one of the major works, renamed Presumed Portrait of Madeleine.
Thank you to Fondation pour la Mémoire de L’esclavage (FME) for sharing this story with Europeana.