Key images from the exhibition
A visible difference: skin, race and identity – Key images in the exhibition
Portrait of Mary Sabina
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A visible difference: skin, race and identity – Key images in the exhibition
Portrait of Mary Sabina from Buffon’s Histoire Naturelle , 1777
This engraving stresses Mary’s exoticism by presenting her surrounded by American Indian artefacts. There are also variations between the skin patches in Mary’s painted portrait and the engraving. The portrait raises questions about the extent to which artists created their own views of difference by ‘designing’ the settings and the skin.
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A visible difference: skin, race and identity – Key images in the exhibition
George Alexander Gratton
Courtesy of All Saints Church, Marlow, Buckinhamshire
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A visible difference: skin, race and identity – Key images in the exhibition
George Alexander Gratton Coloured aquatint after Daniel Orme, 1809
Subtitled ‘An Extraordinary Spotted Boy’, this engraving was often sold as a souvenir when George was exhibited. Although described as a portrait, George is represented as an exotic specimen rather than an individual. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery 5
A visible difference: skin, race and identity – Key images in the exhibition
Portrait of John Hunter by Joshua Reynolds, 1786
Hunter’s interest in race and anatomy is reflected in the open book, showing a series of skulls of different human races and animals, arranged in a progressive series according to their shape.
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A visible difference: skin, race and identity – Key images in the exhibition
The Cast of an African From John Hunter’s collection
Hunter’s collection included several plaster casts from black Africans. One was an anonymous full body cast of an African. Another was a cast of a head and face identified as the African writer Ignatius Sancho.
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A visible difference: skin, race and identity – Key images in the exhibition
Omai Attributed to William Hodges, c.1775
Omai (or Mai) came from Huahine near Tahiti. He was brought to England in 1774. He was placed in the care of Sir Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander, both of whom had visited Tahiti with Captain James Cook five years earlier. Through them he was introduced into London society and presented to George III and Queen Charlotte.
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A visible difference: skin, race and identity – Key images in the exhibition
An orangutan and a black African Petrus Camper, 1791
This image was part of a larger series showing the supposed gradation in the shape of the skull from monkeys to white Europeans.
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A visible difference: skin, race and identity – Key images in the exhibition
Front and side view of the face of an African, 1785
These drawings were used to illustrate the German anatomist Samuel Thomas Soemmerring’s book On the Physical Differences of the Negro and European , 1785.
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A visible difference: skin, race and identity – Key images in the exhibition
Portrait of John Bobey Late 18th century
This drawing, from John Hunter’s collection, is believed to show John Bobey.
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A visible difference: skin, race and identity – Key images in the exhibition
Mrs Newsham and family, 1788
In 1788 the painter Johan Zoffany produced a portrait of a ‘White Negress’ with her English husband and two children for John Hunter’s collection. The painting has since been lost, but it is probable that the woman represented was Mrs Newsham.
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