The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens has acquired a set of six paintings by Italian-born artist Agostino Brunias (c. 1730-1796).
The paintings depict free people of colour from Dominica and St. Vincent in scenes from everyday life on the Caribbean islands. Brunias holds a singular and much-discussed role in the ongoing reconsideration of European depictions of Black and mixed-race subjects in painting. His paintings raise questions about the intended and real-world effects that works of art had on the dominant attitudes that a White majority, especially in Britain, held toward slavery, colonialism and plantation culture in the Caribbean in the final decades of the eighteenth century.
Read more on the Huntington's website.