Bartholomew Dandridge, baptized 1691–died in or after 1754, British
Title:
A Young Girl with an Enslaved Servant and a Dog
Date:
ca. 1725
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
48 x 48 inches (121.9 x 121.9 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.205
Gallery Label:
In this portrait, a young girl stands in a lace-trimmed dress, accompanied by a dog and an enslaved servant, who hands her a basket of fruit. The servant and dog both wear metal collars, marking them as property. Bartholomew Dandridge’s painting gives especially clear expression to the way that many eighteenth-century portraits constructed their white sitters’ identities in relation to perceived “others,” including non-Europeans and animals. The relief on the urn, which shows a group of cherubs taming a wild goat— an allegory of lust—serves as a contrast to the ostensibly chaste, “domesticated” love, which the young girl is shown to inspire in her two attendants. In fact, the possibility of sexual contact between white mistresses and black servants or slaves was a source of anxiety during the period. \n\n Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016
