RACE | ART | WOMEN

How a Famous Black Model Finally Got Her Name Back

In 1800, when women were not respected as artists, Marie-Guillemine Benoist painted this controversial portrait of a “nameless” Black woman.

Andrew Jazprose Hill

Published in

Momentum

4 min readMar 6, 2024

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Photo (detail) of the Louvre’s Portrait of a Black woman with white head scarf and exposed breast known as Portrait of Madeleine, but formerly called Portrait of a Negress. — Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Portrait of Madeleine (formerly known as Portrait of a Negress) (detail), 1800

For more than two centuries, the woman in this famous portrait remained nameless…

Andrew Jazprose Hill

Written by Andrew Jazprose Hill

Writer for

Momentum

In the Jazprose Diaries on Substack, I write about Art, Culture, and Race with a mindful memoirist's eye. Come on in. The water's fine.

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