The Story of Art Without Men

by Katy Hessel

At the time the portrait was painted, Benoist failed to document the sitter’s name, but after extensive research for a groundbreaking exhibition, Posing Modernity: The Black Model from Manet to Matisse, curated by Denise Murrell in 2019, the sitter was identified as Madeleine, a servant who had been brought to Paris from the Antilles by the artist’s brother-in-law. Originally Portrait d’une négresse, the work was rightfully renamed Portrait of Madeleine. Prior to Murrell’s research, others had criticised the lack of attention to the identity of the sitter, a contentious issue throughout much of art history, which has seen Black sitters’ identities stripped. Murrell adds, ‘Although the model is portrayed as emblematic of liberty, she can be assumed to have had little or no ability to influence the manner of her portrait’; confirming that Black people were regularly utilised as symbols rather than individuals, as Murrell notes, ‘which would have been the case if they had been European’.