Fine Art Fetish Friday

Portrait of Jean Baptiste Belley by Anne-Louis Girodet (1797).

Belley was a freed slave who rose to prominence in the French military. The subject in the bust is a well known abolitionist of the time. Despite the feminine sounding name, the artist was a male.

The portrait is notable for Belley’s impressive bulge, which was clearly intentional given how it is framed by the his hand. There’s a lot to, um, unpack there. Some of the artist’s other paintings also had suggestions of homoerotic themes. And then there’s a less pleasant racial context since large genitalia in those times were considered somewhat animalistic. Not unlike similar stereotyping that continues over two centuries later.

(I wish I could attribute these historical details to the BBC, but it comes from a few random online articles).