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Description: | Handcoloured engraving. Three men, with a dog, gaze at the semi-naked form of the 'Hottenton Venus' from behind a rope barrier. Saartjie (Sara) Baartman (c. 1788?1815/16) was a Quena, or Hottentot, woman brought to Europe from South Africa in 1810 by a ship?s surgeon. She was publicly displayed to paying crowds in Britain and later, most famously, in France. Audiences reacted with both curiosity and mocking incredulity at her distinctive physical appearance, which ? with prominent genitalia and pronounced buttocks (steatopygia) ? was in striking contrast to that of European women. Baartman embodied the ?Other?, representing the perceived exoticism and eroticism of ?primitive? Africa. She was exhibited naked in a cage in Piccadilly, and in Paris she posed as a model and became the focus of wanton sexual attention. She died of an infection on, or shortly before, 1 January 1816. The French anatomist George Cuvier (1769?1832) made a cast of her body, and her brain and genitals were pickled for public exhibition. They remained on display in Paris until 1985 and were finally returned to South Africa for a traditional burial in 2002. Part of the Michael Graham-Stewart slavery collection.
caption: La Venus Hottentote | Publisher: | "http://collections.rmg.co.uk/" | Rights holder: | "Royal Museums Greenwich" | Subjects: | George Loftus | Source: | Royal Museums Greenwich | Identifier: | http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections... | Go to resource |
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