The Mysteries of Dido Belle’s Portrait

Yesterday’s Guardian contained an article by Stuart Jeffries about the painting of Dido Elizabeth Belle and Lady Elizabeth Murray that inspired the new movie Belle.

This painting was once attributed to Johann Zoffany but is now considered to be by an unknown artist, making its interpretation harder. In particular, the article quotes differing theories on why Dido is posed the way she is:

Why does Dido look as if she’s rushing past her cousin on an errand? For [novelist Caitlin] Davies, one possibility is that this started as a single portrait. “It looks like the portrait of Elizabeth came first and then someone wanted the two young women together, so Dido was added. The touch between them can seem awkward – is Elizabeth pushing her away? But perhaps the painter just kept Elizabeth as she was, with one arm held out.” . . .

Mario Valdes, a US historian of the African diaspora, suggests that her turban may be part of an attempt to Indianise Dido. Between 1770 and 1771, he points out, her father served as His Britannic Majesty’s Minister Plenipotentiary in India. What does that have to do with Dido’s gesture? “One interpretation is that she is pointing to the difference in complexion between herself and her cousin,” says Valdes. “But I would argue that a far more sophisticated approach is at play.”

There is a sculpture that shows Krishna in a similar pose, Valdes explains, and a story that he was once slapped by a female deity for taking on the appearance of her sister and her husband. When this sister tried to console him, he smiled, pointed to his bruised cheek, and exclaimed: “She has shown that all three of us are one and the same.” Valdes says: “What Dido’s pose apparently proclaims, therefore, is that she and her cousin share the same humanity and innate worthiness.”

As the article notes, there’s no evidence to suggest the artist or other people connected to the painting knew about that Hindu myth. Dido Elizabeth Belle was not apparently close to her father, with his Indian connection. Furthermore, it was already common for British artists to depict black servants in turbans.

The article mentions how some souvenirs of the painting crop it to show Dido alone. Once her upper body is tilted upright, she appears rather like many other women in period portraits, posed as if seated behind a symbolic platter of fruit. Other paintings show women touching their faces in the same manner.

The dual portrait thus seems to be two rather standard formal portraits of young women, combined in a way to show the social (and ethnic) divide between them yet also depicting their friendship. The artist undoubtedly knew the trope of placing a black servant in the background of a portrait as a generic symbol of wealth, but (was) pushed into unexplored territory of depicting a black individual treated fondly as a member of the family. Hence Lady Elizabeth reaching back to touch Dido’s arm. The result is awkward, but the unknown artist was doing something without precedent.

(The Guardian article misstates the name of Thomas Hutchinson, the former Massachusetts governor quoted here about Dido Belle.)

Thomas Hutchinson Meets Dido Belle

The movie Belle is now in theaters, I’m sharing former Massachusetts governor Thomas Hutchinson’s impression of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the young woman of (some) African descent who inspired that drama.

This is from Hutchinson’s diary entry for 19 Aug 1779, when he dined with Lord Chief Justice Mansfield and his family in England. Dido Belle had grown up in that family, receiving a genteel though limited education. It’s notable that she didn’t dine with the family on this occasion and had responsibility for some of the farming operation.

As usual, Hutchinson grasped many of the implications of the situations yet carefully deferred to his aristocratic host’s sensibilities in what issues he raised.

A Black came in after dinner and sat with the ladies, and after coffee, walked with the company in the gardens, one of the young ladies having her arm within the other. She had a very high cap, and her wool was much frizzled in her neck, but not enough to answer the large curls now in fashion. She is neither handsome nor genteel—pert enough. I knew her history before, but my Lord mentioned it again. Sir Jno. Lindsay having taken her mother prisoner in a Spanish vessel, brought her to England, where she was delivered of this girl, of which she was then with child, and which was taken care of by Lord M., and has been educated by his family. He calls her Dido, which I suppose is all the name she has. He knows he has been reproached for shewing a fondness for her—I dare say not criminal.

A few years ago [in 1771-1772] there was a cause before his Lordship bro’t by a Black [James Somerset] for recovery of his liberty. A Jamaica planter being asked what judgment his Ldship would give? “No doubt,” he answered, “he will be set free, for Lord Mansfield keeps a Black in his house which governs him and the whole family.” She is a sort of Superintendent over the dairy, poultry yard, &c., which we visited, and she was called upon by my Lord every minute for this thing and that, and shewed the greatest attention to everything he said.

I took occasion to mention that all the Americans who had brought Blacks had, as far as I knew, relinquished their property in them, and rather agreed to give them wages, or suffered them to go free. His Ldship remarked that there had been no determination that they were free, the judgment (meaning the case of Somerset) went no further than to determine the Master had no right to compel the slave to go into a foreign country, &c. I wished to have entered into a free colloquium, and to have discovered, if I am capable of it, the nice distinctions he mast have had in his mind, and which would not make it equally reasonable to restrain the Master from exercising any power whatever, as the power of sending the servant abroad; but I imagined such an altercation would rather be disliked, and forbore.

As Hutchinson tells Dido Belle’s story, Capt. Lindsay wasn’t necessarily her father—but most people had no trouble saying he was.

The Somerset legal case that Hutchinson referred to has a Massachusetts connection: Somerset’s owner, the Customs official Charles Steuart, had been posted in Boston in 1769 just before returning to Britain with a slave he’d purchased years before in Virginia. Hutchinson had probably met Steuart and might even have seen Somerset at work. But because he was just another enslaved servant, he probably didn’t prompt the attention that Hutchinson gave to Dido Belle.

Belle’s Boston Premiere, 4 May

A new British movie set in the eighteenth century will be previewed on Sunday, 4 May, at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

Belle was inspired by the story of Dido Elizabeth Belle (1761-1804), daughter of an enslaved African woman and Capt. John Lindsay of the Royal Navy. She was raised in England by a great-uncle, Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, who issued the ruling in the Somerset case that made slavery unenforceable in England.

The painting above shows Belle and her cousin, Lady Elizabeth Murray, also raised by the Lord Chief Justice and his wife. Though at one time interpreted as a young woman and her servant, the picture is now recognized as showing two free cousins, though one has higher social status than the other.

The movie explores Dido Belle’s life in England, living in a household at the top of society and yet in a society with wealth based in significant part on racial slavery. It posits (as people did then) that Belle influenced her great-uncle’s thinking about slavery and race.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw stars as Dido Belle. Lord Mansfield is played by Tom Wilkinson, which is a very good sign, and his wife by Emily Watson. The Museum of Fine Arts screening, which is free but requires passes, will be followed by a panel discussion and question period.