Black Tudors in Art
As part of our Black Tudor series, we bring to the fore our family represented in art between the late 1400s to 1600s. Most of the subjects are unidentified and appear as part of a wider story or feature as secondary subjects, like Oliver Cromwell's African attendant (top left hand corner), but sporadically they were the main subjects.
It's important to note the social landscape of Europe at the time too, as there was an even greater presence of Africans across Spain, Portugal, France and Russia for example. Two of the paintings we've highlighted are Spanish and Portuguese.
Knowledge is power, and context is key. Africans have been travelling the globe since time began and fortunately not all evidence has been destroyed or hidden to disprove this. Contextualize the stories in these paintings and you'll piece together parts of history.
