SOURCE: King, Reyahn, “Ignatius Sancho and Portraits of the Black Elite.” In Ignatius Sancho: An African Man of Letters, edited by Reyahn King and others, pp. 15-43. London: National Portrait Gallery, 1997.

[In the following excerpt, King considers Sancho's role as a man of letters in London's artistic circles, discusses the portrait done of him by the artist Thomas Gainsborough, looks at the lives of other members of Britain's Black elite, and examines the most important surviving eighteenth-century portraits of Africans in Britain.]

Sancho may be styled—what is very uncommon for men of his complexion, A Man of Letters.

(The Monthly Review, 1783, pp. 492-7)

The 18th-century reviewer of Letters of the late Ignatius Sancho, an African, To which are prefixed, Memoirs of his Life clearly articulated contemporary opinion when he called Ignatius Sancho a man of letters. Although by the 19th century Sancho was considered a curiosity because of his colour, he had enjoyed the reputation of a man of letters and a man of taste amongst many of his contemporaries. Sentimental but knowing, Sancho's letters written in the later part of his life reveal an amiable, well-read man whose good humour prevailed against poverty, sickness and death. Sancho's wit was always combined with an elaborate courtesy, softening any ironic blows, and in the midst of family and financial concerns, he attempted to retain both Shandean mockery and religious faith. Luck and his ability to attract aristocratic patronage, to charm the fashionable world and earn for himself a respectable niche within London's artistic circles, ensured for Sancho not only a life of comparative comfort but also allowed his character and inclinations full rein in a way normally impossible for black men in British 18th-century society.

Most black men in 18th-century England arrived as slaves and their status and income, if any, usually reflected the disadvantage of their colour within an economic and social system reliant on slavery's products. Sancho and his friend Julius Soubise enjoyed the benevolent patronage of aristocratic families but they were exceptionally lucky, as Sancho emphasised in his letters to Soubise:

Happy, happy lad! what a fortune is thine!—Look round upon the miserable fate of almost all of our unfortunate colour—superadded to ignorance,—see slavery, and the contempt of those very wretches who roll in affluence from our labours. Superadded to this woeful catalogue—hear the ill-bred and heart-racking abuse of the foolish vulgar.

(Edwards and Rewt, 1994, p. 56)

Although men like Sancho and Soubise were indeed uncommon, they were representative of a small élite in Britain's 18th-century black community. Portraits usually indicate status and the few that are known or were recorded of black people at this time include Sancho by Gainsborough, the gallant swordsman Chevalier de Saint-Georges, the missionary Philip Quaque, and formerly enslaved Prince Job Ben Solomon. The surviving portraits suggest a historical black community with varied skills and experience, of which Sancho was undoubtedly a member. Sancho assumed the role of moral mentor to others in the community including Soubise and married a black West Indian Anne Osborne. His musical friends included Charles Lincoln, a black regimental musician who, in Sancho's words, ‘intends trying his fortune amongst us—as teacher of murder & neck breaking—alias—fencing & riding—’ (Edwards and Rewt, 1994, p. 62-3. Annotation on original suggests ‘My friend L———’ is Lincoln). Sancho was always willing to attempt to find employment for other colonial servants and to participate in the finding of financial support for members of his community.

This chapter introduces Ignatius Sancho and his role as a man of taste and letters in London's artistic circles. It describes his portrait by Gainsborough and notes the unusual quality of such a gentlemanly and well-painted image of a black man in 18th-century England. It surveys other members of Britain's black élite of the time and discusses some of the most significant surviving 18th-century portraits of Africans in Britain. …

Sancho's beginnings were inauspicious. He was born on a slave ship crossing the Atlantic and was baptised at Cartagena in Spanish America. Following the death of his mother and the suicide of his father, Sancho was brought to England at about two years old. He was given to three sisters in Greenwich who resisted his attempts to learn to read, judging that education would make him restive. He was deeply unhappy in his situation as a slave-servant in Greenwich. A hint of this is given many years later in his first letter to Laurence Sterne:

The first part of my life was rather unlucky, as I was placed in a family who judged ignorance the best and only security for obedience.—A little reading and writing I got by unwearied application.—The latter part of my life has been—thro' God's blessing, more fortunate.

(Edwards and Rewt, 1994, p. 85)

Although Sancho couched the description of his unhappiness in terms of being withheld from education, his first biographer Joseph Jekyll, writing in 1782, suggested that Sancho's causes for distress were more wide-ranging. His mistresses apparently threatened to send him back to the West Indies, where slavery on the plantations was much harsher than the life of a ‘pet’ in London, and they restricted his social life.

John, 2nd Duke of Montagu, who owned Caribbean estates and had attempted to develop sugar plantations in St Lucia, had a residence on Blackheath, where he had seen and taken an interest in Sancho from an early age. According to Jekyll, he had ‘brought him frequently home to the Duchess, indulged his turn for reading with presents of books, and strongly recommended to his mistresses the duty of cultivating a genius of such apparent fertility’. The ‘cultivating of genius’ was something of a hobby of the Duke's and long before meeting Sancho, he had paid for the education of the Jamaican slave Francis Williams at Cambridge. Although the Duke had died, Sancho fled in 1749 to the Duchess who, however, rebuffed him. He then threatened to commit suicide and the Duchess relented, admitting him into her household as butler in 1749 or 1750. The speed with which he became a significant member of the Montagu household is surprising. The Duchess of Montagu died in 1751 and left Sancho a legacy of £70 and an annuity of £30. Such a legacy was unusually large for a servant of only two years' standing and although the size of the legacy probably also reflects the great wealth of the Montagu family, it demonstrates Sancho's status as an upper servant. Records of payments from 1752 to 1771 show that the subsistence annuity was indeed paid regularly every six months by the Duchess's heir, Mary Montagu (Countess of Cardigan, and later Duchess of Montagu), for the remainder of Sancho's life.¹

Jekyll stated that Sancho squandered his legacy on women and gambling but however profligate he may have been, it was during this next stage of his life that he probably formed his friendships with people in the theatrical world. He adored the theatre and, according to Jekyll, spent his last shilling on a performance by Garrick of Richard III. He considered acting in the obvious roles of Oroonoko and Othello but a speech defect made the venture impossible. A decade or more later, Garrick and the actress Catherine Horneck (Mrs Bunbury) were still amongst his friends. In 1779 Sancho described a visit to the theatre in order to see another friend, John Henderson, playing Richard III. Loyal to Garrick with whom he had supper on the same evening, Sancho described the event:

It was a daring undertaking—and Henderson was really awed with the idea of the great man, whose very robes he was to wear—and whose throne he was to usurp.—But give him his due—he acquitted himself well—tolerably well—He will play it much better next time—and the next better still. Rome was not built in six weeks—and, trust me, a Garrick will not be formed under seven years.

(Edwards and Rewt, 1994, p. 193)

By 1758 Sancho was back in service to the Montagu family. He married Anne Osborne on 17 December. George Brudenell, 4th Earl of Cardigan (son-in-law to the 2nd Duke of Montagu and later created Duke of Montagu himself), ‘soon placed him about his person’, probably as one of his valets (Edwards and Rewt, 1994, p. 23). Someone chosen for this role attended to the fashionable appearance of his master, occasionally acted as travelling companion and was expected to behave like a gentleman. Although Sancho's ill health and marriage puts the extent of his usefulness into some doubt, he was suited for such an honorific position. His skin colour alone made him an exotic asset and Sancho's personal qualities of intelligence and wit would have reflected well on his master. As an upper servant close to a personage as grand as the Earl of Cardigan, Sancho's position would have furthered his natural ability to befriend society figures. In turn, Sancho was loyal and grateful to the Montagu family whose patronage and support lasted throughout his life. In addition to encouragement, employment and the annuity, connection to the Montagu family ensured that Sancho and his large family received smaller practical benefits. Thus, the Earl of Cardigan paid five pounds and five shillings for the christening of Sancho's eldest daughter Frances on 23 January, 1761 (George Cardigan's Account Books, 1755-1772 (NCRO, X4573)).

Sancho led a peripatetic life centred on his master's routine but he had ample opportunity in the Montagu household to develop his taste for art, literature and music as he came into contact with members of the family and their circle, who were art enthusiasts, collectors and amateur musicians. The dedications of the surviving works of Sancho's music are all to members of the Montagu family and he was able to produce and publish musical works whilst still a servant. His Theory of Music has been lost but volumes of songs, dances and music for the harpsichord survive. He became widely known as a man of letters following the publication of the letter which he sent to Laurence Sterne in 1766. Despite still being in service to the Montagu family, Sancho's literary reputation developed from this period.

By 1773, Sancho's gout and asthma necessitated retirement from service so he decided to set up a grocery. He shared his thoughts about the venture with Mrs H.——

As soon as we can get a bit of house, we shall begin to look sharp for a bit of bread—I have strong hope—the more children, the more blessings—and if it please the Almighty to spare me from the gout, I verily think the happiest part of my life is to come—Soap, starch, and blue, with raisins, figs, &c.—we shall cut a respectable figure—in our printed cards.

(Edwards and Rewt, 1994, p. 59)

Despite the gout, Sancho was indeed happy as an independent family man. He wrote frequently to friends and correspondents sharing his enjoyment of literature, family life and politics. As a shopkeeper, Sancho seems to have become truly free to correspond and socialise with friends, artists and literary figures. Callers to his shop included aristocrats and patrons choosing to express their condescending support for this remarkable black man by buying his products, as well as those like George Cumberland who genuinely sought out the opinion of a man of letters.

Through ill-health and financial problems, Sancho's active interest in the arts and the world around him remained undimmed. Sancho's later letters to his friend, the Bury St Edmunds banker, John Spink, provide a lively account of contemporary events and politics in London. He described the Gordon Riots:

There is at this present moment at least a hundred thousand poor, miserable, ragged rabble, from twelve to sixty years of age, with blue cockades in their hats … ready for any and every mischief.—Gracious God! what's the matter now? I was obliged to leave off—the shouts of the mob—the horrid clashing of swords—and the clutter of a multitude in swiftest motion—drew me to the door—when every one in the street was employed in shutting up shop.

(Edwards and Rewt, 1994, p. 231)

In his postscript he added:

The Sardinian ambassador offered 500 guineas to the rabble to save a painting of our Saviour from the flames, and 1000 guineas not to destroy an exceeding fine organ: The gentry told him, they would burn him if they could get at him, and destroyed the picture and organ directly.—I am not sorry I was born in Afric.

(Edwards and Rewt, 1994, p. 232)

Sancho clearly enjoyed describing the exciting events and mocks his own voyeurism when he should have been shutting up shop like his neighbours. On the other hand, he disapproved of the violence and thoughtless iconoclasm not only because of the threat to property, law and order but also because he favoured toleration. The Gordon Riots were an expression of anti-Catholic and anti-Irish prejudice which Sancho would have opposed, as he did most prejudices. Looking back to the days of the riots, Sancho wrote ‘Our religion has swallowed up our charity—and the fell daemon Persecution is become the sacred idol of the once free, enlightened, generous Britons.’ Shopkeeper, property owner, voter and defender of culture though he was, Sancho had to withstand the assumption that he was a barbarian because he was of African origin. The Gordon Riots demonstrated that barbarity was not special to Africa and by juxtaposing the irrelevant detail of his pride in African descent against his account of the rabble, Sancho reminded his reader of the unjust and ridiculous nature of racial prejudice.

Sancho's ‘retirement’ to his shop in Charles Street had been occasioned by infirmity but it is only from November 1780 that his letters regularly recount the physical torments of his illnesses and mention a variety of doctors. Sancho's final letter to John Spink was dated 7 December 1780 and admitted that ‘In good truth, I have been exceeding ill.’ (Edwards and Rewt, 1994, p. 259). He died a week later on 14 December 1780, receiving a short obituary in the Gentleman's Magazine.

The opening lines of Sancho's famous introductory letter to Sterne appeals to sentiment via a shocking reference to his own position: ‘Reverend Sir—It would be an insult (or perhaps look like it) to apologise for the liberty I am taking.—I am one of those people whom the vulgar and illiberal call ‘Negurs.’ (Edwards and Rewt, 1994, p. 85). This letter paved the way to friendship with Sterne, for whom Sancho obtained a subscription from the Montagus for the ninth volume of Tristram Shandy and regularly called on at his lodgings.

Sancho learnt the perfect form of manners as a valet and sometimes appeared to rest all the thanks for his comparatively privileged position at the feet of his patrons and generous friends. Yet his angry comments about the status of American poet Phillis Wheatley suggest that he was not so obsequious as has sometimes been claimed: ‘It reflects nothing either to the glory or generosity of her master—if she is still his slave—except he glories in the low vanity of having in his wanton power a mind animated by Heaven—a genius superior to himself.’ (Edwards and Rewt, 1994, p. 122). Sancho chose to play the part of the educated man with a full command of etiquette who could appeal to the sentimentality of Sterne's generation in his attempts to highlight the injustices done to his fellow Africans. However, Sancho's reputation as a man of letters extended beyond his friendship and correspondence with Sterne or the novelty of an African literate and fluent in English. Although most of his letters were personal, some of them appeared in periodical literature during his lifetime and, as was common practice at the time, a few were written expressly for that purpose. Thus, he contributed for The General Advertiser a comical proposition to raise a regiment of hairdressers ‘which are happily half-trained already for the service of their country by being—powder proof -’ (Edwards and Rewt, 1994, p. 225). In 1779 Edmund Rack requested Sancho's permission to publish two of his letters in a planned collection to be called Letters of Friendship. Sancho's two plays are now lost but they would have been known about by his contemporaries. The literary judgements expressed in Sancho's letters are confident and his critical opinion was valued and sought after. Aspiring author George Cumberland wrote to Richard Dennison Cumberland:

a black man, Ignatius Sancho, has lately put me into unbounded conceit with myself—he is said to be a great Judge of literary performances (God send it may be true!) and has praised my Tale of Cambambo, and Journal which I read to him, so highly that I shall like him as I live.

(BM Add Mss., 36, 514, f. 29)

In an animated letter to his close friend George Meheux, Sancho wrote:

give Tom Jones a second fair reading!—Fielding's wit is obvious—his humour poignant—dialogue just—and truly dramatic—colouring quite nature—and keeping chaste.—Sterne equals him in every thing, and in one thing excels him and all mankind—which is the distribution of his lights, which he has so artfully varied throughout his work, that the oftener they are examined the more beautiful they appear.—They were two great masters, who painted for posterity—and, I prophesy, will charm to the end of the English speech.

(Edwards and Rewt, 1994, p. 136)

Analogies with painting are clear in Sancho's choice of words and, like other critics including Dr Johnson, Sancho here judged literature according to the author's ability to conjure a picture in the mind.

Sancho also enjoyed playing the role of literary guide. Thus, he advised Jack Wingrave to ‘preserve about 201. a year for two or three seasons—by which means you may gradually form a useful, elegant, little library—’. Amongst Sancho's recommended volumes for the fledgling library were ‘a little of Geography—History—’ (Robertson and Goldsmith), two small volumes of Sermons by the ‘dissenting minister’ Mr Williams, ‘Spectators—Guardians—and Tatlers—you have of course.—Young's Night-Thoughts—Milton—and Thomson's Seasons were my summer companions for near twenty years—’ (Edwards and Rewt, 1994, p. 140).

In his letter to John Spink describing the Gordon Riots, Sancho revealed his concern for the preservation of beautiful objects, but he was equally interested in contemporary artists and their productions. In 1774 he reported to William Stevenson on the activities of John James Barralet and the drawing school set up by the Free Society of Artists (Sunderland, 1986, p. 28): ‘I suppose you know he has opened an Academy in St. Alban's Street—at two guineas a year—naked figures three nights a week—’. Artists sought out Sancho in his shop and made calls on him there. J. T. Smith described a visit he paid to the shop in Charles Street with the sculptor Nollekens: ‘as we pushed the wicket door, a little tinkling bell, the usual appendage to such shops, announced its opening: we drank tea with Sancho and his black lady, who was seated, when we entered, in the corner of the shop, chopping sugar, surrounded by her little “Sanchonets”.’ (Smith, 1828, pp. 27-8). Sancho was intimate with professional artists Daniel Gardner, John Hamilton Mortimer and the Norwich painter and miniaturist William Stevenson. An acquaintance of Richard Payne Knight, Sancho's ability as a connoisseur was recognised by J. T. Smith (Smith, 1829, p. 28) as well as by Joseph Jekyll who commented that ‘Painting was so much within the circle of Ignatius Sancho's judgment and criticism, that Mortimer came often to consult him.’

Sancho hung a portrait of his friend Mrs Cocksedge, later Lady Bunbury, by Daniel Gardner above his chimney piece and Nollekens's gift of a plaster cast after his bust of Sterne occasioned the visit described by Smith above. Besides these gifts, he owned a portrait of himself by Gainsborough. It is likely that he owned prints or other works by John Hamilton Mortimer and William Stevenson, an antiquarian whose work as an artist is now scarcely known but who was one of Sancho's most frequent correspondents. Sancho procured prints by Mortimer, and probably other artists, for friends and he commented on, and circulated, drawings and caricatures (for examples see letters 65 and 110). The immensely popular amateur artist Henry William Bunbury married Sancho's theatrical friend Catherine Horneck. Bunbury later supplied a vignette for an additional title page to the fifth edition of Sancho's Letters published by William Sancho.

In his portrait of Sancho, Gainsborough has committed to posterity a visual image which, like Sancho's Letters, is notably vivacious and shifting in mood. Sancho's expression seems both amused and quizzical as if Gainsborough has captured him on the verge of speech or laughter. Appropriately, a stipple engraving of 1781 by Bartolozzi after Gainsborough's portrait was used for the frontispiece of the posthumous edition of his Letters. Although excited by public life, Sancho was a family man who asserted domestic virtues above more public values. It does not surprise, therefore, that Gainsborough, whose supreme skill as a painter elevated domestic charm, produced an image so in keeping with Sancho's character. Gainsborough's skill is clearest in his treatment of Sancho's skin colour. Unlike Hogarth, whose use of violet pigments when painting black faces results in a greyish skin tone, the brick-red of Sancho's waistcoat in Gainsborough's portrait, combined with the rich brown background and Sancho's own skin colour, make the painting unusually warm in tone as well as feeling. Gainsborough has painted thinly over a reddish base with shading in a chocolate tone and minimal colder lights on Sancho's nose, chin and lips. The resulting face seems to glow and contrasts strongly with the vanishing effect so often suffered by the faces of black servants in the shadows of 18th-century portraits of their masters.

A 19th-century pamphlet describing Sancho's portrait cites a note on the back of the canvas in William Stevenson's hand inscribed ‘This sketch by Mr. Gainsborough, of Bath, was done in one hour and forty minutes, November 29th, 1768.’ It is likely that Sancho's portrait was indeed painted in November 1768, when the Duchess of Montagu was also sitting for her portrait at Bath. It is not known who paid for the portrait or indeed whether it may have been a gift from Gainsborough directly to Sancho. Although Sancho had ownership of it after he left service, it is possible that it was commissioned by the Duke or Duchess. (The Duke's father had, for example, a portrait of Daniel Eaton who had been his steward.)

Gainsborough and Sancho had plenty to discuss whilst the sitting for the portrait took place. They shared mutual friends such as Garrick, violin virtuoso Felice Giardini and, later, the preacher Dr Dodd. Both were convivial, keen amateur musicians, and prone to exceed ‘the bounds of temperance’ as Gainsborough's daughter Margaret expressed it (cited in Stainton, 1977, Introduction). It is possible that they knew each other before the sitting through the Montagus or Garrick.

As was appropriate for the portrait of a servant, the half-length painted oval format is modest and informal. Unlike lesser servants, however, Sancho is not wearing livery. He is dressed in a fashionable waistcoat with gold brocade edging and black necktie. He is shown without any attributes of his talents such as an instrument or a book, nor is he shown holding an object—so common a feature of poses of black slaves or servants in images where they are of secondary importance. Instead he is portrayed in the gentlemanly ‘hand-in-waistcoat’ pose, adopted by portraitists from etiquettes of posture. The hand-in-waistcoat pose signified the modest reserve of an English gentleman (Meyer, 1995, p. 60) and although the pose was ubiquitous it confirmed Sancho's image as a respectable Englishman.

One might expect an 18th-century African known for his literary talent to be portrayed with literary attributes and indeed the rather poor anonymous portrait of Francis Williams sets him in a library. As a result, the viewer immediately perceives a learned black man but perceives little of William's own character. Williams was educated at Cambridge, wrote poetry and set up a school in Jamaica. Williams's attendance on the governing council of Jamaica was blocked and throughout his life he suffered from assumptions that his learning was only of interest because he was black. Hume's uninformed comment that ‘it is likely he is admired for slender accomplishments, like a parrot who speaks a few words plainly’ is not undermined by a portrait which places the man within a poorly realised setting that contrives to be both exotic, with its lush landscape in the distance, and traditionally learned at the same time. In contrast, Sancho's portrait, with its relaxed but elegant and socially acceptable pose, allows Sancho's individuality to shine without distraction.

Gainsborough's portrait of Sancho is perhaps the most accomplished of British 18th-century portraits of black people. However, other portraits are significant because they provide us with an insight into black life which is quite different from the more common portrayals of black people in paintings as exotic accessories to the fashionable world, or in prints where they are depicted as ragged, amusing or socially dangerous caricatures inhabiting the margins or lowest ranks of society.

Despite Sancho's later life, it used to be believed that Sancho himself was depicted in this derogative way in Hogarth's Taste in High Life and in a portrait of Lady Mary Churchill, Duchess of Montagu, with Charles, her page, attributed to Enoch Seeman. Taste in High Life was painted in 1742 as a satire on contemporary fashions and the print after it was produced without Hogarth's permission (Paulson, 1989, p. 31). Hogarth's inclusion of the black boy is a rare visual criticism of the fashionable possession of slave boys as pets. Even in the 18th century the boy being petted condescendingly by his mistress was said to be Sancho. However, as Sancho's friend John Ireland stated in his work on Hogarth, Sancho would, in 1742, already have been significantly older than the little boy pictured.

Although Sancho was in service to Lady Mary Churchill, Duchess of Montagu, her portrait attributed to Seeman was probably painted in the 1720s and Sancho was not born until around 1729. Unusually, it is possible to identify the page boy as Charles ‘ye Black of her Grace’. References to him in the family's cash books provide a few details to add to the picture. Like Sancho, he was fortunate in finding himself with the Montagu family for he was paid wages like an ordinary servant rather than a slave, and care was taken to ensure he was educated, nursed when he was ill and above all, well-clothed in fine livery or exotic outfits. He received an expensive ‘black velvit cap’ and his shoes were made by the Duchess's own shoemaker. Black people like Charles served in art and in life as exotic accessories reflecting the status, elegance and wealth of their owners. He wears livery (S. Llewellyn, Personal communication, 1996) and although he looks out of the canvas, he is clearly placed in a subservient position to the Duchess who is seated at a higher level and whose gaze rests far above his head.

This type of portrait with black retainers was well established by the 17th century and is illustrated by the typically exotic portrait of Louise de Kéroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth, in which the black page's dark skin is used to set off the fair complexion of the Duchess. In these images, the individuality of the boys is diminished by their role as signifiers of the other's social standing. It is their skin colour, their exotic clothing or their livery which matters because these items reflect their owner's status.

Artists generally shared this attitude. Thus, Dutch artist Hendrik Pothoven used detailed working drawings for pose, posture and clothes of the figures in his paintings but left the faces without detail because he would later paint them, more accurately, from life (R. J. A. te Rijdt, 1990, p. 367). However in the case of two exquisite drawings of the same black servant, Pothoven has drawn the face with considerable care. It has been suggested that it may have been unnecessary to paint the servant from life as in his case it was sufficient to work from the drawing (R. J. A. te Rijdt, 1990, p. 361). The figure is decorative and a good personal likeness was less important than for the other sitters. The drawings also illustrate the disturbing, confined beauty and exoticism often associated with slave children. The boy wears a dark metal slave collar with his livery, turban and pearl earring. Slaves' collars bore owners' details and confirmed property status.

Men as well as boys were reduced to stereotypical portrayal. Sancho's troublesome friend Julius Soubise was the favourite of the Duchess of Queensberry, becoming a riding and fencing assistant to Henry Angelo and later master of his own Academy in Bengal. Soubise was also infamous as a Don Juan and fop and became a symbol for extravagance and inappropriate pretension. ‘A Mungo Macaroni’ was produced as one in a highly popular series of caricatures which used the figures of contemporary followers of fashion, the Macaronies, to satirise foolish aspirations. The print, published in 1772 by M. Darly, is probably a caricature of Soubise and his affectations. It has been further suggested that the intended victim of the caricature was Jeremiah Dyson, known as Mungo after the name had been given to him in a debate and who was thereafter frequently caricatured as a black man, in this case in the guise of Soubise (M. D. George, 1935, p. 82; G. Gerzina, 1995, p. 10). In the following year, 1773, Soubise's relationship with the Duchess of Queensberry, as well as his fondness for clothes, perfume and flowers, was mocked in a caricature of the pair fencing.

A more flattering representation of a black figure with a white companion occurs in the double portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle with Lady Elizabeth Murray attributed to Johann Zoffany. Dido was born around 1763, the illegitimate daughter of Sir John Lindsay, nephew to Lord Mansfield. Lord Mansfield took Dido into his household at Kenwood, perhaps as a companion for his niece Elizabeth Murray, shown seated in the painting. Dido was treated with kindness and held a position balanced between family member and superior servant, joining the family and their guests for coffee, but not dinner (Adams, 1984, pp. 10-14). Dido steps forward whilst Elizabeth stops her reading to acknowledge Dido and reach towards her. Dido is wearing romantic garb of vague construction associated with masquerade dress. The specific features of Indian turban with an ostrich feather and diaphanous sash mark her costume as ‘Eastern’. This costume is fancy dress for portraiture which foregrounds her ethnic origins (‘Eastern’ could apply to the West Indies in the rather vague notions of 18th-century exoticists). In addition, Dido points at the colour of her cheek. Elizabeth Murray wears a contemporary day dress in light fabrics which contrasts with the outmoded satin of Dido's outfit. However, satin continued to be worn at masquerades (A. Ribeiro, 1975, p. 241) and Dido's dress would therefore have been immediately acknowledged by the fashionable eye as a fancy costume. Contemporary and fancy costume were not usually combined in group portraits in this way: the painter evidently gave some thought to his treatment of Dido. He needed to display the affection between the two girls and the favour shown to Dido by Mansfield and Elizabeth, whilst retaining a decorous assertion of their different status. His choice of variant costume is a harmonious solution legible to 18th-century viewers who were familiar with black pages dressed in exotic clothing and turbans. Dido's air of activity in the picture further suggests her status—whilst Elizabeth could read at her leisure, Dido had duties to fulfil as a kind of superintendent over the dairy and poultry yard. As a product of the empire, Dido appropriately bears a plate of fruit suggesting the cornucopia of produce yielded up by the West and East Indies. This double portrait of Dido Belle and Elizabeth Murray is one of very few images of black women in the 18th century. It is particularly valuable for its representation of a respectable, identifiable black girl, rather than an anonymous attendant or the lewd or poor stereotypes which appeared in 18th- and 19th-century prints.

Like Dido Belle, Francis Barber benefited from a generous patron who treated him as an adopted child and bequeathed him a large inheritance. Barber was well known as Dr Johnson's servant, especially for the black social gatherings he held at Johnson's house. He was much beloved by Dr Johnson, for whom he worked almost continuously from 1752 to Johnson's death in 1784. Johnson took a strongly paternal interest in Barber's education and left his entire inheritance to him. One of the most famous images of a black figure today is an unfinished work, now in the Menil Foundation, executed by Reynolds around 1770 (N. Penny, 1986, pp. 245-6), frequently identified as Francis Barber.

The identification of the painting's subject as ‘Frank’ Barber probably stems from a confusion which arose in the 19th century between Frank Barber, Dr Johnson's servant, and Reynolds' own black servant (Reade, 1909, pp. 103-7). Sir George Beaumont, who bought the painting at auction in 1796, and had known Reynolds and probably his servant also, allowed it to be exhibited at the British Institution in 1813 as Sir Joshua Reynolds' black servant. But the work had become associated with Barber by 1857 and in 1861 the British Institution catalogue's confused misidentification read ‘Barber, Frank, Servant of Sir Joshua Reynolds’.

It is known that Reynolds used his servant as a model. For example, he painted him as a young page holding the Marquess of Granby's horse in Granby's portrait in the Royal Collection (Northcote, 1819, p. 204). The Menil Foundation painting is heroic in mood but Reynolds appears in fact to have had a low opinion of his servant. When his servant was robbed, Reynolds was appalled to find the apprehended criminal under threat of execution and made his servant provide the convict with food from his own table (Northcote, 1819, p. 206). (Nor was this through any squeamishness about the death penalty for in 1788 Reynolds was publicly criticised for attending the execution of another servant personally known to him.) The painting by Reynolds is a study in painterly technique rather than a portrait as such and several versions after it result from his students being encouraged to copy it. The image embodies notions of the noble savage and is used to represent a type rather than an individual.

By contrast, another image once attributed to Reynolds but since relegated to ‘English School’ (E. Waterhouse, Personal communication to C. Blackie, 1961) certainly represents the portrait of an individual. He is usually identified as Olaudah Equiano, author of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself, first published in 1789. Equiano's early British slave narrative was an important weapon in the rallying movement against the slave trade. Born in Nigeria, Equiano was captured by slave-traders as a boy, served on a plantation in Virginia, in the Royal Navy during the Seven Years' War, and then acted as a trader for a Quaker owner before managing to buy his own freedom. Thereafter he joined the Phipps expedition to the Arctic seeking a Northeast Passage in 1773, acted as commissary for the Sierra Leone resettlement project, and toured all over England promoting the abolition of the slave trade. The identification of Equiano as the subject of the painting was originally made on the basis of a supposed similarity to the frontispiece engraving to The Interesting Narrative (W. Fagg, Personal communication to J. Baker, 1961). It was quickly recognised that the painting could not be the original of the engraving by Daniel Orme after W. Denton as pose and costume are completely different. Nevertheless, the facial likeness was accepted despite the fact that Equiano's face in the frontispiece is long and narrow, especially in the lower half of the face, contrasting with the jowly figure in the painting. Christopher Fyfe raised doubts about their likeness in a verbal address in 1994 but the identification of the portrait as Equiano has generally continued. However, the date of the painting presents a further obstacle to identification of the sitter as Equiano. Judging by the costume and style, the portrait is unlikely to have been painted after 1765. Yet from the time of his kidnap until 1762, Equiano spent most of his time working at sea and from 1762 to 1766 he was in the West Indies. From 1767 to 1773 Equiano was based in London but was actively working on commercial vessels sailing to the Mediterranean and the West Indies (Carretta, 1995, p. ix). It seems unlikely that Equiano would have had the opportunity to have his portrait painted before 1767 or that he would have found time in later years and not mentioned the event in his narrative.

Although this portrait may not be of Equiano, it bears mute testimony to the presence in Britain of black individuals who were of sufficient status to have their portraits painted even if we do not know who they are today. (Fyfe has suggested that the portrait is of another author of a slave narrative, Ottobah Cugoano (Fyfe, 1994). However, Cugoano was enslaved around 1770 and the probable date of the portrait therefore discounts him also.) Whoever it is, the portrait is a fine one. It possesses that disturbing forthrightness and presence which Equiano himself noticed the first time he saw a portrait in 1756. Despite the novelty of Western images, Equiano immediately understood the function of portraits, although he added a layer of superstition to his recognition of their intention:

and when I immediately after observed a picture hanging in the room, which appeared constantly to look at me, I was still more affrighted, having never seen such things as these before. At one time I thought it was something relative to magic; and not seeing it move, I thought it might be some way the whites had to keep their great men when they died.

(Carretta, 1995, p. 63)

A few portraits keep alive the memory of 18th-century black people also. They hint at the far-reaching consequences of Britain's commercial empire with its transatlantic traffic in people, goods, ideas and culture. Trade with both the Indies involved Britain herself in cultural change as the peoples and cultures of those exotic worlds came to her ports. Sancho and the other black people whose faces have been recorded for us in portraits were unusually fortunate. Yet Sancho embodies many of the ambiguities and strengths of the black experience in Britain. Born on the Atlantic between Africa and the West Indies he found the means to free himself by turning to the Montagu family for patronage and appealing to their sense of his intelligence and promise. Many slaves simply ran away to the anonymous crowds of the city. Although Sancho was keenly aware of the horrors of slavery, his urban society was dominated by its products. He could not avoid these and he traded in sugar. Deflecting racism, Sancho claimed an equal right to independence, to partake in and contribute to English culture, to become a connoisseur and a man of letters. Sancho's humour, irony, literary expression and cultured zest for life somehow reconciled the differences. The man represented in Sancho's letters and in Gainsborough's portrait was confident in his own abilities and took an ironic view of his own life because he recognised the madness of his surrounding culture and the position it assigned to black people. The suggestion of a laugh or a wry comment playing on his lips in Gainsborough's portrait thus aptly captured Sancho's character and his understanding of his own position in 18th-century London as an African man of letters.

Note

1. Lady Cardigan's Account from 7 July 1749 to 10 July, 1755 and The Dutchess of Montagu's Account from 17 July 1769 to 22 July, 177–, Boughton House Archive.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Boughton House Archive

Boughton House Cash Books 1727-1737.

Inventory of Paintings in Boughton House, 1832 (BH10);

Lady Cardigan Account from 7 July 1749 to 10 July 1755;

The Dutchess of Montagu's Account from 17 July 1769 to 22 July 177—.

Northamptonshire County Record Office

George Cardigan's Account Books, 1755-1772 (NCRO X4573).

Collection of John Ralph Willis

Letters from Ignatius Sancho to William Stevenson;

Letters from or on behalf of Elizabeth Sancho mostly to William Stevenson;

Letters from William Sancho to William Stevenson.

British Library Department of Manuscripts

Letter from George Cumberland to Richard Dennison Cumberland (BM Add Mss., 36, 514, f. 29);

Letter from George Cumberland to Richard Dennison Cumberland (BM Add Mss., 36, 492, f. 204).

Greenwich Local History Society, Woodlands Local History Library: Notes prepared by Neil Rhind on Montague House as part of forthcoming publication on Blackheath Village.

Secondary Sources

Adams, G. (1984), ‘Dido Elizabeth Belle: A Black Girl at Kenwood’, Camden History Review;

Alister, C. (1978), ‘Montague House, Blackheath and “The Delicate Investigation”’, in Transactions of the Greenwich and Lewisham Antiquarian Society, vol. 8, no. 6, pp. 234-46;

Angelo, H. (1828-1830), Reminiscences of Henry Angelo, with Memoirs of His Life, Father and Friends, 2 vols, London: Henry Colburn;

Armstrong, W. (1904), Gainsborough and his Place in English Art, p. 278, London: William Heinemann;

Boggs, J. S. (1971), The National Gallery of Canada, London: Thames and Hudson;

Brilliant, R. (1991), Portraiture, London: Reaktion Books; Cambridge: Harvard University Press;

Bryant, J. (1990), The Iveagh Bequest: Kenwood, London: London Historic House Museums Trust;

Bush, J. (1993), ‘Moving on—and looking back’, History Workshop, Issue 36;

Clarkson, T. (1836), The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, by the British Parliament, 3 vols, London: Longman & Co;

Cormack, M. (1991), The Paintings of Thomas Gainsborough, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press;

Cunnington, P. (1974), Costume of Household Servants; from the Middle Ages to 1900, London: A and C Black;

Dabydeen, D. (1985), Hogarth's Blacks: Images of blacks in eighteenth century English art, Kingston-upon-Thames: Dangaroo Press;

Donald, D. (1996), The Age of Caricature. Satirical prints in the reign of George III, New Haven and London: Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press;

Edwards, P. (1992), ‘Unreconciled Strivings and Ironic Strategies: Three Afro-British Authors of the Georgian Era, Ignatius Sancho, Olaudah Equiano, Robert Wedderburn’, Occasional Papers no. 34, Edinburgh: Centre of African Studies, Edinburgh University;

Edwards, P. and D. Dabydeen (1991, 1995), Black Writers in Britain 1760-1890, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press;

Edwards, P. and J. Walvin (eds) (1983), Black Personalities in the Era of the Slave Trade, London: Macmillan;

Equiano, O. (1995), The Interesting Narrative and other writings, ed. V. Carretta, New York and London: Penguin Books;

Fryer, P. (1984), Staying Power. The History of Black People in Britain; London: Pluto Press;

Fryer, P. (1993), Aspects of British Black History, London: Index Books;

Fulcher, G. W. (1856), Life of Thomas Gainsborough, R.A., London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longman;

Fyfe, C. (1994), To remind us of Paul, delivered as a tribute at a conference in honour of Paul Edwards, Edinburgh;

George, M. D. (1935), Catalogue of political and personal satires: preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, vol. 5, 1771-1783, London: British Museum;

George, M. D. (1951), London Life in the Eighteenth century, London: London School of Economics and Political Science;

George, M. D. (1967), Hogarth to Cruikshank: social change in graphic satire, London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press;

Gerzina, G. (1995), Black England: Life before Emancipation, London: John Murray;

Graves, A. and W. V. Cronin (1899-1901), A History of the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A, 4 vols, London: H. Graves & Co.;

Hecht, J. J. (1954), ‘Continental and Colonial Servants in Eighteenth-Century England’, The Smith College Studies in History, no. 40;

Hecht, J. J. (1956), The Domestic Servant Class in Eighteenth-Century England, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul;

Honour, H. (1989), The Image of the Black in Western Art. IV. From the American Revolution to World War I, Cambridge and London: copyright by Menil Foundation Inc., Houston, distributed by Harvard University Press;

Hubbard, R. H. (1957), The National Gallery Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture, vol. 1, Older Schools, Ottawa and Toronto: University of Toronto Press;

Ireland, J. (1791-1798), Hogarth illustrated from his own manuscripts, 3 vols, London: J. E. J. Boydell;

Kaplan, S. and E. Nogrady Kaplan (1989), The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press;

Kapp, H. (1972), Daniel Gardner 1750-1805, London: Greater London Council;

Laskin, M. Jr. and M. Pantazzi (eds) (1987), Catalogue of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, European Painting, Sculpture and Decorative Arts, vol. 1, Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada/National Museums of Canada;

Locke, A. (ed.) (1940), The Negro in Art: a pictorial record of the negro artist and of the negro theme in art, Washington: Associates in Negro Folk Education;

Lumsden, I. G. (1991), Gainsborough in Canada, Fredericton, New Brunswick: Beaverbrook Art Gallery;

Meyer, A. (1995), ‘Re-dressing classical statuary: the eighteenth-century “hand-in-waistcoat” portrait’, in The Art Bulletin, vol. 77, no. 1 (March);

The Monthly Review; or Literary Journal: (January-December, 1783), vol. 69, pp. 492-7, London: R. Griffiths;

Murdoch, T. (ed.) (1992), Boughton House: The English Versailles, (especially Appendix 1: ‘The Portraits’ by Malcolm Rogers), London: Faber and Faber/Christie's;

Nichols, J. and G. Steevens (1808-1817), The Genuine Works of William Hogarth, 3 vols, London: Longman;

Northcote, J. (1819), The Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds, vol. I, London: Printed for Henry Colburn, Conduit Street;

Ogude, S. E. (1983), Genius in bondage, a study of the origins of African literature in English, Ife-Ife;

Paulson, R. (1971), Hogarth: His Life, Art, and Times, 2 vols, New Haven and London: Yale University Press;

Paulson, R. (1989), Hogarth's Graphic Works, London: The Print Room;

Paulson, R. (1991/1992/1993), Hogarth, 3 vols, New Brunswick and London, 1991, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1992, Cambridge, 1993;

Penny, N. (ed.) (1986), Reynolds, London: Royal Academy of Arts catalogue in association with Weidenfeld and Nicholson;

Pointon, M. (1993), Hanging the Head: Portraiture and social formation in eighteenth-century England, New Haven and London: published for The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press;

Reade, A. L. (1912), Johnsonian Gleanings, Part II: Francis Barber, The Doctor's Negro Servant, London: Arden Press;

Ribeiro, A. (1984), The Dress Worn at Masquerades in England, 1730 to 1790, and its relation to fancy dress in portraiture, New York and London: Garland;

Riely, J. (1983), ‘Henry William Bunbury: the amateur as caricaturist’, in Henry William Bunbury 1750-1811, Sudbury: Gainsborough's House Society;

te Rijdt, R. J. A. (1990), ‘Figuurstudies door Hendrik Pothoven en enkele biografische gevevens’, Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, 8, pp. 345-58;

Sancho, I. (1782), Letters of the late Ignatius Sancho, an African, To which are Prefixed, Memoirs of his Life first ed., 2 vols, London: J. Nichols;

Sancho, I. (1803), Letters of the late Ignatius Sancho, an African, to which are Prefixed Memoirs of his Life by Joseph Jekyll, Esq, MP fifth ed., London: Printed for William Sancho;

Sancho, I. (1968), with a new introduction by Paul Edwards, Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho: An African to which are Prefixed Memoirs of His Life by Joseph Jekyll, Esq, MP, facsimile reprint of fifth edition, London: Dawsons of Pall Mall, The Colonial History Series;

Sancho, I. (1994), Edwards, P. and P. Rewt (eds) (1994), The Letters of Ignatius Sancho, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press;

Sandiford, K. A. (1988), Measuring the Moment: Strategies of Protest in Eighteenth-Century Afro-English Writing, London and Toronto: Associated University Presses;

Shyllon, F. O. (1974), Black Slaves in Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press for Institute of Race Relations;

Shyllon, F. O. (1977), Black People in Britain, London: Oxford University Press for Institute of Race Relations;

Smith, J. T. (1828), Nollekens and his Times, London: Henry Colburn;

Stainton, L. (1977), Gainsborough and his Musical Friends, London: Greater London Council

Sunderland, J. (1986), ‘J. H. Mortimer’, in Walpole Society, vol. 52;

Sypher, W. (1942), Guinea's Captive Kings: British Anti-Slavery Literature of the XVIIIth Century, Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press;

Tibbles, A. (ed.) (1995), Transatlantic Slavery. Against Human Dignity, London: HMSO for National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside;

Wake, J. (1954), The Brudenells of Deene, London: Cassell and Company Ltd.;

Walvin, J. (1971), The Black Presence: A Documentary History of the Negro in England, London: Orbach and Chambers;

Walvin, J. (1986), England, Slaves and Freedom 1776-1838, Basingstoke: Macmillan;

Walvin, J. (1993), Black Ivory: A History of British Slavery, London: Fontana Press;

Waterhouse, E. (1958), Gainsborough, London: Edward Hulton;

Wendorf, R. (ed.) (1983), Articulate Images: The Sister Arts from Hogarth to Tennyson, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press;

Whitley, W. T. (1915), Thomas Gainsborough, London: Smith, Elder & Co.;

Williamson, G. C. (1921), Daniel Gardner, London and New York: Bodley Head;

Willis, J. R. (1980), ‘New Light on the Life of Ignatius Sancho: Some Unpublished Letters’, Slavery & Abolition, vol. 1, no. 3, December;

Woodall, M. (ed.) (1963), The Letters of Thomas Gainsborough, Ipswich: The Cupid Press;

Wright, J. (1979), ‘Ignatius Sancho (1729-1780), African Composer in England’, Black Perspective in Music, vol. 7, no. 2, Fall;

Wright, J. (1981), Works, Ignatius Sancho (1729-1780), An Early African Composer in England: the Collected Edition of his Music in Facsimile, New York and London: Garland;

Wright, J. (1986), Lotz, R. and I. Pegg (eds) (1986), ‘Early African Musicians in Britain’, in Under the Imperial carpet. Essays in black history 1780-1950, Crawley: Rabbit Press;

Young, M. J. (1806), Memoirs of Mrs. Crouch, London: J. Asperne.