Agostino Brunias, 1728–1796, Italian, active in Britain (1758–70; 1777-80s)
Title:
A Linen Market with a Linen-stall and Vegetable Seller in the West Indies
Date:
ca. 1780
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
21 5/8 x 30 inches (54.9 x 76.2 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B2009.12.3
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Subject Terms:
bananas | women | selling | men | children | babies | food | linen | genre subject | cigarette and tobacco boxes | costume | dwellings | landscape
Associated Places:
West Indies
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
Historias Afro-Atlanticas (Instituto Tomie Ohtake, 2018-06-28 - 2018-10-21)American Adversaries - West and Copley in a Transatlantic World (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2013-09-22 - 2014-01-19)Caribbean - Crossroads of the World (El Museo del Barrio, 2012-06-12 - 2013-01-06)Caribbean - Crossroads of the World (Perez Art Museum Miami, - )
Publications:
Amanda Michaela Bagneris, Coloring the Caribbean : Agostino Brunias and the Painting of Race in the British West Indes, 1765-1800 [PhD Dissertation, Harvard University], Cambridge, MA, 2009, pp. 148, 238, fig.41, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses GlobalMia L. Bagneris, Colouring the Caribbean : Race and the Art of Agostino Brunias, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2018, pp. 67, 69, 90n.89, 134n.61, fig. 14, NJ18.B84652 B34 2018 (YCBA)Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, Still Thinking about Olympia's Maid, Art Bulletin, vol. 97, College Art Association of America, Inc., New York, NY, December 2015, p. 451, fig. 59, available online via Art Bulletin OnlineErica James, Re-worlding a World : Caribbean Art in the Global Imaginary [PhD Dissertation, Duke University], Durham, North Carolina, 2008, pp. 229-30, fig. 82, available online via ProQuestSotheby's sale catalogue : Topographical Paintings, Watercolours and Drawings : 27 May 1988, Sotheby's, London, May 27, 1988, p. 76, Lot 155, Auction Catalogues (YCBA)Kaylin H. Weber, American Adversaries : West and Copley in a Transatlantic World, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, 2013, pp. 168, 170-171, fig. 159, NJ18.W52 A5 47 2013 (HAAS)
Gallery Label:
The linen market was a recurrent theme in the work of Agostino Brunias. His detailed depictions of the buying and selling of textiles—manufactured in Britain for export to the Caribbean and Africa—were calculated to showcase the prosperity of the British-controlled West Indies, and the islands’ active participation in the global economy. Brunias’s careful depictions of dress and race draw on ethnological images of racial and social types that were popular in Europe, yet his figures also function as individuals actively negotiating their place in society. Dress was a form of resistance and means of establishing autonomy among the enslaved and free people of color. Brunias gave particular prominence to figures of women, who are often well dressed and stride confidently through the bustling chaos of the public marketplaces. Surrounded by people and goods from around the world, they are an integral part of the islands’ commercial and social life. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016