As a court painter the French painter Antoine Pesne was in great demand, and many of his subjects chose to be painted with Black servants. In this portrait of the Crown Prince of Württemberg, Friedrich Ludwig, and his wife Henriette Marie of Brandenburg-Schwedt, the women’s eyes draw our attention to the lord. The Black woman in the background is in the act of serving a drink to her mistress and wears a headscarf with feathers and a necklace to add a touch of exotic flair to her fashionable outfit.
Jeff Bowersox
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Source: Antoine Pesne, Erbprinz Friedrich Ludwig of Württemberg (1698-1731) mit seiner Gemahlin Henriette Marie von Brandenburg-Schwedt (1702-1782), via Wikimedia Commons.
Antoine Pesne, Portrait of Friedrich Ludwig and Henriette Marie (ca. 1716) by Jeff Bowersox is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at https://blackcentraleurope.com/who-we-are/.
Black Central Europe 