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| Blacks and Jews: Jewish police officers haul away a black man in this anonymous depiction of a Lisbon street scene |
According to the Jewish Daily Forward, both groups lived near gritty Portugal port in 16th Century. In the painting "Netherlandish" Blacks and Jews are depicted in a 16th century urban scene.
The anonymous 16th-century painter who recorded a scene of everyday life at the king’s fountain (Chafariz d’El Rei) in Lisbon depicted an impressive range of people and animals.
In addition to a swan, a seal, fish, horses, dogs and birds, the artist also included more than 150 human figures. There’s so much going on in the busy scene along Lisbon’s port that Joaneath Spicer, the James A. Murnaghan Curator of Renaissance and Baroque Art at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, can be forgiven for initially overlooking an important detail.
Only after she had finished working on the exhibition catalog did Spicer notice how many Jews appeared in the work.
The artist depicted at least half a dozen Jewish men — the women’s religious identities are more difficult to discern — including two Jewish policemen hauling away a black man who appears, according to the wall text, to be “drunk and sheepish.”
The latter figure and several other Africans explain the painting’s appearance in the exhibit “Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe,” which is at the Walters through January 21. It subsequently travels to the Princeton University Art Museum, where it will be shown from February 16 to June 9. Read full story at Jewish Daily Forward
Below the complete view of the painting "Netherlandish", Chafariz d’el Rey in the Alfama District (View of a Square with the Kings Fountain in Lisbon), ca. 1570-80. The detail which is shown in the picture above is on the left side in the image below.
Slavery in Portugal
A significant difference between African slaves in Renaissance Europe and pre- and post-revolutionary North America is that in Europe, slaves were more likely to be freed.
According to wills, testimonies, and other documents from the 16th century, owners of black Africans in Western European countries not only liberated their slaves, but also often helped them establish livelihoods as lawyers, churchmen, schoolteachers, boatmen, authors, artists, and more.
Renaissance Lisbon
was home to the highest percentage of blacks in Europe at the time,
ranging in status from slaves to knights.
This reality is reflected in an unusual painting made by an unknown
artist, probably from the Netherlands, of the Lisbon waterfront in the
late 16th century, where blacks and whites from a variety of social
strata co-exist in a public square. Read more at www.artnews.com
The vast majority of Jews in Spain and Portugal WERE BLACK!! They were not slaves as this post attempts to paint them. Are we assuming that because some males in the painting had big noses that they were Jews? If so they were Ashkenazim who were written to be in the Iberian Peninsual during the 10th century (coming from the Khazarian converts). How do we know that this is a painting from the 16th century, when there's no known information on WHO painted it? Based on what I know of the history of Portugal in the middle ages before slavery because of what I have read in history books, it is revisionism to try to present a picture where Jew=white and black=slave or Muslim. Totally false!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, for the record I've added the source of the information. As for the age of the painting, I believe it's from a Flemish painter and these kind of street images were typical for Flemish painters in a certain time, according to what I've read about it. As for the slavery part, perhaps you're right: history is subjective.
DeleteAnonymous is absolutely correct. If you actually read the books about this era you will find that the "black" people being hauled away were in fact jews being banished first from spain, then portugal and their children taken to the west coast of Africa to be enslaved.
DeleteTHE JEWS WHO WERE BANISHED TO SAO TOME AND SENEGAMBIA WERE WHITE MEN WHO TOOK BLACK AFRICAN WOMEN FROM ANGOLA AND CREATED A MULATTO CLASS CALLED LANCADOS. THERE ARE VARIOUS SOURCES THAT DOCUMENTS THESE COMMUNITIES IN WEST AFRICA ONE WOUD BE JEAN BARBOT: DESCRIPTION OF THE GUINEA COAST PG 408.
DeleteThat`s the biggest whitewashed lies of Eurocentrism. The black people in the paintings are not slaves they are Jews and Moors who ruled and built Al-Andalus today known as Portugal and Spain. Al-Andalus was a Moorish Empire lasting almost 1000 years which brought Europe out of the dark ages. The exploration of the Americas and advent of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade started right after the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition and Expulsion of the Jews and Moors. The Jews stayed longer than the Moors as the Moors were mostly muslim black Africas and Arabs. They were hated by the Spanish and Portuguese. This is the main res
DeleteYou can tell they are Jews because,as the original article states, they were required to wear "flat berets and yellow circles affixed to their clothes, per Charles V’s ruling...". Thanks for an interesting post. Make sure to use quotes when you quote text directly or cite when you paraphrase.
ReplyDeleteYOU GOT IT RIGHT, THE ONES TRYING TO DISPUTE THE COLOR OF THE JEWS HERE ARE JUST HEBREW ISRAELITES
DeleteGreetings, please note the following corrections to the article above. The Jew depicted in the painting was the dark brown gentlemen being arrested. Its impossible for the other two gentlemen to be Jews due to the Portuguese expulsion edict and inquisition. Basically Portuguese government banished all Jews from their country in 1492. Jews were hated in Portugal. Any Jews remaining in Portugal after the deadline were arrested, enslaved, possessions confiscated, and deported to Africa. Please read the following excerpt from Wikipedia. There are several books available on Portuguese Jewish persecution. Please read whenever you have time. Thanks.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Portugal
"In 1492, Spain expelled its Jewish population as part of the Spanish Inquisition. Tens of thousands of Spanish Jews subsequently fled to Portugal, where King John II granted them asylum in return for payment. However, the asylum was only temporary—after eight months, the Portuguese government decreed the enslavement of all Jews who had not yet left the country. In 1493, King John deported several hundred Jewish children to the newly discovered colony of São Tomé, where many of them perished."
You knock it out the park. I mean what you stated and how you stated is irrefutable! Excellent job.
Deleteyou are extremely misled, you have no proof the black man being arrested was a jew, it has been documented that jews were required to wear badges to distinguish them from Christians, blacks need no badge because their skin is enough.Clearly the yellow badge wearing jews are not black. This very painting is dated AFTER the expulsion of the jews, not all were expelled because many stayed and became crypto jews posing as Christians. Also the 1506 massacre in lisbon proved jews were still there. The jews who went to africa mixed with local africans creating a mulatto class, please stop this hebrew israelite trash.
DeleteThe difference between European Slavery and American Slavery is that Slavery was imported into North America by the Royal African Trade Company. The British Empire was running the show and history has been rewritten. Centuries of history have been erased, such as the Royal East Indian Trade companies drug trafficking and wars in China and India. Perhaps because the oligarchs were the original human and drug trafficking gangsters, or perhaps because they are running the show.
ReplyDeleteThe brown man is the jew. Have a look at the hats, this gives it away. red hats were christian and the white is Jew. this fella probabbly had his inquisition. The painting was done for a reason and to be read from left to right. loads hidden here.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct! The Portuguese Jews literally went by the last name Negro! They were black! N this painting is actually of a specific day & scene that happened at the port of Lisbon....on this day the King of Portugal enforces his law that all of the Black Moors & Black Jews concert to Christianity or leave by force...and this artist is a painting of that exact scenery! It was recorded that the Black Hews children under 14 was taken from them n converted to Christianity...n the parents were beaten wit clubs! This article is disappointing! It bears false witness that promotes white supremacy...
ReplyDeleteI am amazed that no one ever draws attention to what's happening in the very center of the painting - a person being burned!!
ReplyDeleteI am amazed that no one ever draws attention to what's happening in the very center of the painting - a person being burned!!
ReplyDelete