Reconsidering the Role of African Children in Renaissance Pictography

Onyeka Nubia

Publication date: 2023-07-18

The African is a ‘careless interloper,’ ‘stranger,’ ‘foreigner,’ an ‘unexpected and unwelcome guest’ in European Renaissance art. And the presence of African children in that art is an indication of slavery, cultural, social, political and economic exploitation. Hitherto these notions have been the dominant historiographical positions, used to define African children in European pictography; and excavate the presence, status and origins of those ‘kinds of people’ in early modern societies. But now, a more nuanced and intersectional position is being adopted, that is not revisionist but reformative of Renaissance pictography and early modern ethnicity. This presentation will explore these complicated matters.

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