West India Washer Women, 1770s.

Source: National Library of Jamaica, Institute of Jamaica, Kingston

From Slavery Images:

Title, West India Washer Women, shows several women washing clothes in a river; a small child is playing by the riverside. The location is not given, but it is probably Dominica or St. Vincent. Agostino Brunias (sometimes incorrectly spelled Brunyas, Brunais), a painter born in Italy in 1730, came to England in 1758 where he became acquainted with William Young. Young had been appointed to a high governmental post in West Indian territories acquired by Britain from France, and in late 1764 Brunias accompanied Young to the Caribbean as his personal artist. Arriving in early 1765, Brunias stayed in the islands until around 1775, when he returned to England (exhibiting some of his paintings in the late 1770s) and visited the continent. He returned to the West Indies in 1784 and remained there until his death on the island of Dominica in 1796. Although Brunias primarily resided in Dominica he also spent time in St. Vincent, and visited other islands, including Barbados, Grenada, St. Kitts, and Tobago.

Many of Brunias’s paintings feature a central female figure of mixed race. In this piece, a mulatto woman is standing upright in the river, emulating Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. She is surrounded by dark-skinned women who are actively washing the clothing. Brunias places the mulatto physically above the dark-skinned women, which is also a common motif within his work.