Figuring the Black Body in European Decorative Arts

by Adrienne L. Childs

The new book Ornamental Blackness: The Black Figure in European Decorative Arts addresses the implications of the depiction of Black bodies in luxury objects from the Baroque period through the 19th century. A story begging to be told, the book traces the complex history of the vogue for representing Black people as an ornamental motif throughout spaces of wealth and refinement. Objects such as furniture, porcelain, clocks, silver, and lighting vessels conveyed the taste for exoticism and portrayed laboring figures as a decorative element. These objects express a host of issues, such as the concept of race, romantic notions of distant lands, the harsh realities of enslaved labor in the colonies, the presence of Black servants in wealthy European households, and the fraught culture of luxury consumption.

A central character in this study is the “blackamoor” genre of figures in wood, silver, or other materials designed to mimic Black people in the act of servitude perpetually accommodating the object’s owners and their guests. The term blackamoor is related to the indeterminate concept of the “Moor” often used by Europeans to denote a variety of types of Africans writ large. From Ethiopians, to Moroccans, to Black Africans of unknown origin, the term Moor was a moniker for Black people. The term is also entangled in race, religion, and the centuries-old tensions between Christian Europe and those they considered barbarians: Muslims, Arabs, and Ottomans. Therefore, undergirding this antiquated term “blackamoor” is a confluence of blackness, otherness, and exoticism that is reflected in the decorative objects in which the figure can be found.

In this survey, I examine the tensions inherent in the system of codes in which the Black body can be enslaved, reviled, feared, subjugated, and assaulted on one hand and a symbol of opulence on the other—all operating within the same cultural ecosystem. As the first publication of its kind to attend to a variety of these objects over three centuries, the book attempts to reveal the cultural and theoretical connective tissue that supports and sustains this troubling trope. Examining important and well-known objects as well as those long ignored in the recesses of museum collections or tucked away in historic properties, Ornamental Blackness suggests a framework for understanding the racialized aesthetics of luxury.

I was inspired to embark on this book project upon realizing that there was very little scholarship in the decorative arts that addressed what I saw as a sustained pattern of examples of Black servitude that animated the field from the 17th century forward. Although Black people were featured prominently as ornamental motifs in the ancient Mediterranean from Egypt through the Roman empire, the trend that grew in the 17th century seemed like a wholly different animal. Tied to colonial expansion and the rise of the Atlantic slave trade, it is a telling element in the history of Europe’s global ambition and reveals how objects figure in the establishment of political power, no matter how innocuous they seem. The theme of ornamental blackness conjures notions of a particular taste linked to the European collector’s fraught desire for the subservient Black figure. At its most insidious, ornamental blackness becomes a stylistic method of control through which the apparatus of the decorative diminishes, marginalizes, fetishizes, and ultimately restrains the menace of the Black body. In its most naïve incarnation, ornamental blackness celebrates myths of the Black exotic without regard for its devastating historic entanglements.

I begin the study in the French court of Louis XIV. The book does not claim that is where the concept originated but reveals that the taste for the exotic Moor in furniture, silver, and spectacle was a well-documented phenomenon in Louis XIV’s circles and was disseminated through the power of his reputation as an aesthetic trend setter. Indeed, Louis’s court was a cultural microcosm where Black servants, groomsmen, performers, and others were an integral part of the spectacle of courtly life.

Their presence and the roles they played were visualized in entertainment, paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, and more. The appearance of a Black page in a portrait of Louis XIV’s daughters exemplified how the Black figure was part of courtly self-fashioning. African slaves were featured in the 1662 Grand Carrousel in which costumed nobles and other participants, including Louis XIV himself, paraded through Paris dressed in elaborate costumes depicting parts of the world. Court ballets frequently featured Black characters.

Motifs from these spectacular events and entertainments would later resurface in more permanent forms such as architectural embellishments and decorative arts. In fact, the progenitor of many later forms of ornamental blackness, the blackamoor guéridon (pedestal table), would be codified in a design by Claude Ballin and circulated in a print by Jean Lepautre (figure 1) that would go on to influence the symbol for centuries to come. For example, the book’s cover features an earthenware female blackamoor on stand, designed c. 1867 by Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, Minton & Co. Manufactory from a private collection. The importance of the taste for ornamental blackness was well documented as court inventories of silver furnishings are replete with references to Moors heads adorning chandeliers and other objects.

From the French court, the book branches out to explore the fashion for Black figuration in English and Netherlandish furniture. The French tastes that took hold within the 17th-century English aristocracy were evident in estates such as Ham House in Surrey, England. Two blackamoor guéridons appeared in the inventory in 1677 and remain featured prominently in the collection to this day. Their style and iconography are closely related to the Ballin drawing, but exact ties cannot be made. What can be determined is the fashionability of the blackamoor guéridon, or the Black figure as a pedestal to support luxury furniture, that most certainly radiated from France.

This vogue surfaces in a plethora of ornamental Black bodies bearing cabinets in objects across Europe from Italy to the Netherlands. I contend that if the guéridon is the generative form of the ornamental blackamoor in the 17th century, the opulent Baroque cabinet is its fullest expression (figure 2). The cabinet—the furniture maker’s most prestigious product of the era—was also the site where a variety of ornamental Black personas came into being. These opulent cabinets also featured precious and exotic materials such as ebony, ivory and tortoise shell—luxury commodities that hailed from across the globe—assembled into finely wrought objects. What comes to light is the relationship between forced labor, colonial enterprises, and the use of these commodities in European workshops. For instance, I consider the implications of a subordinate Black figure being depicted in ebony—against the backdrop of ebony being harvested by enslaved Black people.

Beyond furniture, Ornamental Blackness explores the Black figure in the world of treasury and luxury objects such as porcelains and tabletop silver. The 18th-century Saxon court of Augustus the Strong looms large in the story of ornamental blackness, particularly the objects he commissioned for the Green Vault in Dresden—a treasure trove of elaborate decorative items that marry precious materials with virtuoso craftsmanship. Augustus modeled his own courtly culture after Louis XIV’s, and Black figures were part and parcel of the spectacle of entertainment and served in various capacities. Representations of Black figures that reflected court theatrics were fashioned into small statuary, jewelry, and other objects. They were part of a general taste for fantasy and exoticism. Augustus’s well-known passion for porcelain and taste for the decorative Black body led to a multitude of designs by Meissen porcelain manufactory that incorporated Black characters. Meissen’s popular figure groups featured Black servants who attended to white characters ranging from lovers (figure 3) to hunters.

As the story moves into the 19th century, we see that there is an increasingly complex and interconnected relationship between the arts and industry. This nexus becomes a driving force in the world of luxury material culture. The overthrow of the Ancien Régime in France and the rise of the Industrial Revolution in England led to expanding classes of consumers of luxury goods. As a result, the consumption and display of objects such as bronze sculptures, porcelain, ceramics, furniture, and fabrics were no longer limited to royal courts or the aristocracy. Black bodies continued to figure prominently—now with increasing visibility and availability. These decorative arts were now enjoyed by a growing cadre of collectors who may not have been in a position to retain exotic servants but could replicate that courtly practice in their own spaces. From wallpaper (figure 4) and clocks (figure 5) with colonial-esque themes, to Sèvres porcelain designs and whimsical Minton majolica, I consider the confluence of art and industry as an evolution of the centuries-old taste for the Black body.

The role of Venice is a constant refrain in the story of ornamental blackness. During the diffuse flowering of the blackamoor character in decorative arts across Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, Venice developed a reputation as the epicenter of this motif. The city’s status as a gateway to the “East,” its close ties to cultures of the “Orient,” and its visible Black presence created the fertile conditions for the historical production of the blackamoor fantasy. Although I cannot claim that the origin story for the decorative blackamoor is indeed set in Venice, the decorative Moor has a mythic Venetian history. The final chapter of the book shifts from a chronological survey to a case study of Venice as a unique microclimate that nurtured ornamental blackness over centuries. Lacquer furnishings, Murano glass, and jewelry (not discussed in this publication) are the well-known Venetian products that have disseminated ornamental blackness across the globe. Because of their reach, Venetian products reflect the confluence of race, exoticism, servitude, and luxury embodied in the Moors of Venice (figure 6).

Ornamental Blackness: The Black Figure in European Decorative Arts, from Yale University Press and supported in part by a Dean F. Failey Grant from the Decorative Arts Trust, is now available for preorder with a release date of April 2025.

Adrienne L. Childs is an art historian and curator and is the Senior Consulting Curator at The Phillips Collection.

A print version of this article was published in The Magazine of the Decorative Arts Trust, one of our most popular member benefits. Join today!