Introduction

The Cooper Hewitt Design Museum houses a series of 18 buttons. These buttons have been dated to the late 18th century and are attributed to the Italian artist Agostino Brunias, due to their similarities in painting style and Caribbean backdrop. The artifacts also have a presumed connection to the Haitian revolutionary leader Toussaint L’Ouverture, as they were allegedly fastened to a coat worn by him. Most interestingly, they have been categorized as being Haitian objects on Cooper Hewitt’s online collection because of their depictions of the “British West Indies” island Dominica– currently known as Haiti and Santo Domingo¹– but they do not have a Haitian creator. Each button depicts a different scene, seemingly a snapshot of a moment from supposedly Brunias’ perspective, as a hidden viewer. Most of the paintings have three to four people, typically Africans or Afro-Caribbeans, and there are also depictions of creoles, mestizos, and Indigenous people. 

The circular objects are all gouache paintings on tin verre fixé (“fixed glass” in French), with an ivory backing. Each button is beautifully encompassed with a ring of gilt metal. The color palette is full of warm, pastel colors, with hues of pink, oranges, yellows, and red, possibly due to aging. Most of the figures wear white or light colored clothing, which, along with the pastel palette, contrasts with the dark skin tones of some of the figures. The objects are average size, at 1⁷/₁₆ inches in diameter, slightly larger than a half dollar coin (see below).

The buttons do not display an apparent sequence. Rather, given that there are repeated characters used, it is possible that there is a loose narrative or at least a believable world being crafted here. There does not seem to be an order or clear sequence of events with these scenes, although there are some repeated characters/poses.² This continuity of figures across multiple buttons has led me to question if they are based on real people, but it is also possible that these people are simply fictional characters. It is at least evident that these events all happened sequentially, creating a cohesive or immersive storyline.

Though the buttons have garnered interest and intrigue since their donation to Cooper Hewitt in 1949, there is still very little known about their origins and meaning. The most thorough research I have found as of yet is from a 2012 thesis from a University of North Texas graduate student, Emily Kathleen Thames. In it, Thames made a rather surprising claim that the buttons were actually anti-slavery items worn by Pro-Abolitionists in France.³ Relying on French material culture, Thames hypothesized that the expensive materials used along with the popularity of button portraiture in France suggests that they were worn either in the country or in a French colony by an upper class man. She also theorized that the subject matter and time period they would have been worn indicate that the wearer was an abolitionist, stating: “The language of the Abolitionism became intertwined with that of the French Revolution, and in the 1760s and 1770s, prominent writers such as Rousseau, Voltaire, Raynal, and Diderot ‘used the symbol of the African slave to criticize the perceived tyranny of the French crown.’ Slaves and slavery became synonymous with the plight of the people of France during this time, and conceivably the visibility of Africans was repressed in France by the ruling class to discourage this connotation.”⁴

Although this is a compelling argument, and intriguing to think that these objects could be satire, I struggle with the idea that this imagery of Black and Brown people in an idealized setting of a colonized island is an anti-slavery tool. How could it be that adorning oneself with these types of renderings could in actuality be promoting the Abolitionist movement? This essay will challenge Thames’ theory by looking at Abolitionist art during the same time period, primarily the Josiah Wedgewood 1787 anti-slavery medallion Am I Not a Man and a Brother?, which Thames also references in her writing. In the process of shifting the narrative around these objects, I will examine the visual culture and iconography in early European Modern Art, which regularly utilized a “Black/White dichotomy” as a means to exoticize and other Africans.⁵

My critical analysis will be from a decolonial perspective, as I am ultimately questioning what these objects mean in today’s society as well as how a decolonial praxis shapes the approach to understand and recategorize them. This decolonial methodology will mainly follow the frameworks that Walter D. Mignolo and Catherine D. Walsh discussed in their book, On Decoloniality, particularly Walsh’s idea of decolonial insurgency, “My conceptualization of insurgency here is simultaneously political, epistemic, and existence based; insurgency urges, puts forth, and advances from the ground up and from the margins, or their imaginaries, visions, knowledges modes of thought, other ways of being, becoming, and living in relation.”⁶ In other words, decolonial insurgency not only revolts against the structures of coloniality and modernity, it reimagines alternative systems that allow the marginalized or the colonized to be able to exercise their own autonomy and self-governance. It actively questions current systemic practices and legitimizes other modes of education, societal infrastructure, development, etc. 

Depictions of Blackness in Early European Modern Art

In her analysis, Emily Thames challenged the buttons’ attribution to Brunias and L’Ouverture, positing that there is little evidence other than a 19th century letter by a previous owner of the items, Jean Milare. In this letter, which is also in Cooper Hewitt’s collection, Milare claimed the buttons’ connections to Brunias and L’Ouverture. Thames suggests that this is only to give the buttons an air of importance, increasing their value.⁷ Thames’ argument about the buttons being anti-slavery propaganda seems a bit tacked on towards the end. She relied heavily on French material culture and the fact that the presence of Black figures in upper-class white spaces in France are automatically seen as radicalized, particularly during the Abolitionist movement in the country, but she does not seem to take into account how the Black figure was used in early Modern Art.

In Victor Stoichita’s book Darker Shades, he contextualizes how the Black body was used as a stand-in for all African countries and representation. There was also a fascination and even disgust with their physical features, particularly the darkness of their skin, that there was a trend to contrast it with white imagery, which Stoichita refers to as “Black/White dichotomy”. In visual culture, this could look like displaying a Black person physically close to a white person, like in Karl van Mander III’s Theagnes Wrestling the Ethiopian Giant (1640), but it could also include contrasting with white or light clothing, marble statues, etc.

The book points out two famous portraits in particular that display this Black/White dichotomy trend, Portrait of Citizen Jean-Baptiste Belley (1797-8) by Anne-Louis Girodet (top left) and Portrait of a Negress (1800) by Marie-Guillemine Benoist (top right). Although these paintings were completed during the years between the abolition and reinstatement of slavery in France, 1794 – 1802, the same othering techniques were used. The portrait of Jean-Baptist Belley was displayed in the Élysée Palace in 1797 under a different name, Portrait of a Negro. The name was changed a year later to Portrait of a Citizen and was displayed in the Salon of 1798.⁸ Belley was a former enslaved Senegalese man who later became a representative of Haiti.⁹ Despite his high rankings he was still portrayed in a way that objectified his blackness, the white marble beside him, his white shirt, and light khaki pants are used to further emphasize his skin. His genitals were even enlarged, exoticizing him, as noted by Mary L. Bellhouse, “But the Belley portrait with its violation of classical canons threatens the male spectator who may confront a gap between the size of his own genitalia and what is shown in the painting. Whatever Girodet’s intentions, the Belley portrait puts into circulation in the public sphere in France an early version of the charged claim that black men have unusually large genitals.”¹⁰

Benoist’s painting was exhibited at the Salon of 1800 and features a dark-skinned Black woman wrapped in bright, white sheet along with a white headwrap. Her presence in the salon created a controversy, keep in mind that during this short moment slavery was abolished. The representations of blackness caused more ire, particularly among conservatives, rather than support. An anonymous critic said this of the painting, in a poem, no less:

There’s no talent in the sight 
Of black on top of white; 
We see it in this piece of art; 
The contrast makes the pupils smart, 
The more the figure is emphasized, 
The more the daub offends the eyes. 

This signifies that even during this period of Enlightenment in France and the apparent success of the abolition movement, the representation of Africans was seen as offensive. One could argue that this was meant to provoke the audience and bring attention to the hatred that still permeated society. While possible, this prompts me to ask, how pro-Black is it to use a person’s identity in such a way to stir controversy rather than uplift them?

The buttons were created around the same time as the portraits and were allegedly worn in France (or at least in a French colony). They use the same Black/White dichotomy tropes and othering techniques, this shows that the presence of Black figures in these upper-class French spaces should not automatically be seen as abolitionist, or even pro-Black. The portraits were not connected to abolitionism– the depictions of Africans certainly did not humanize them enough to prevent the reinstatement of slavery in 1802, which would continue for another 46 years in France, permanently ending in 1848¹²– so it would be fair to suggest that the buttons were not associated with abolitionism, or, at the very least, Thames’ anti-slavery argument should be interrogated a bit further.

Wedgwood Medallion

One of the most well-known abolitionist propaganda tools is the Wedgwood Slave Medallion, created by Josiah Wedgwood in 1787. This ceramic medallion depicted a kneeling enslaved Black man, with chains and little to no clothing, above him are the words “AM I NOT A MAN AND A BROTHER?” Due to its materiality, it could be easily reproduced, leading to its popularity. It was worn by both men and women from various backgrounds, while the buttons were most likely only worn by upper-class men. Even though the Wedgwood medallion was worn in Britain, this stark difference in who it is worn by makes me question once again Thames’ argument that the buttons were anti-slavery tools. The medallion was allowed to be worn by as many people as possible, and it was acceptable to have it customizable (for instance, some women preferred to wear them in more feminine ways, like as jewelry or hair clips)¹³, so that more people could identify other abolitionists.

Comparing this to the buttons, I question if the limitation of wearers to only rich white men, probably only one or two people could wear them would make it harder to get the abolitionist message across. If they were meant to be anti-slavery tools, I would imagine that it would be encouraged to be worn by more than one class of person, and by all genders. Social justice, of course, is not only legitimized through mass production, but given the rise of the abolitionist movement in France, one would think that the medium of propaganda items would prioritize objects that can be created and seminated quickly versus precious, hand painted buttons that are made with expensive materials and cannot be reproduced as easily or quickly. If these were truly meant to be anti-slavery buttons, I question their intentions. It reads as faux-altruism to bring attention to the plight of enslaved people (by means of only wearing buttons that feature dark-skinned colonized people in a beautiful backdrop) on materials that were delicate and exclusive. It is true that a cause can be promoted in several different ways and it is possible that this was a way to get the attention of upper-class individuals, but it still does not seem genuine.

The Buttons Today

So how does all of this impact us today? Why does any of this matter? I should include a short anecdote about how I came across the buttons. At the moment, I am working on an independent study/internship with the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, which led me to discover them. I was curious to know more about the museum’s collection and perused through their online database, which allows users to search by country. Haiti’s 18 identified objects (compared to France’s 24,961 objects) caught my attention and I decided to look further into them, which is how I learned about the buttons. The mystery surrounding them is quite compelling and discovering more about their history helps me discover more about myself, as someone in the African diaspora community.

It seems like the Met interpreted the buttons similarly to Thames, as tools of anti-slavery (though the met did not say this explicitly), only the Met attributed their propaganda to the “acceptable” clothing attire the Afro-diasporic people wore, while enjoying their idyllic life under colonization. Whereas Thames posits that the mere presence of an Afro-Caribbean or dark-skinned person in the affluent aristocratic spaces caused enough of a reaction to be correlated to the abolitionist movement. One argument looks at the outward clothing– which leads me to think of  Homi Bhabha, “In this comic turn from the high ideals of the colonial imagination to its low mimetic literary effects, mimicry emerges as one of the most elusive and effective strategies of colonial power and knowledge.”¹⁵– as a means to humanize, while another looks at the contrast of Africanness with Europeanness as a means to shock and radicalize. And yet, I still question the anti-slavery theory.

Going back to the Wedgwood Medallion briefly, Thames says this, “The Medallion portrays a single, half-naked, kneeling slave, pleading for consideration, while the Africans on the buttons represent all levels of West Indian African society, participating in social activities and only rarely get out of the social plane. The Medallion instills a sense of compassion for the slave, while in contrast, the representation on the Cooper Hewitt buttons of totally autonomous individuals, independent and confident within their culture, require no sympathy”¹⁶ Though I agree that the medallion deserves criticism for perpetuating Africans in a subservient way to garner support, I’m not sure if the buttons show “autonomous individuals, confident in their culture” either.

When discussion the buttons, both Thames and the Met note that the settings are idealized, but this idealization and utopia is from a Western perspective. Insurgent decoloniality would challenge this stance. How much agency do Afro-Caribbeans have if their “freedom” is only imagined from the dominant’s perspective? Thames notes that the Afro-Caribbeans exist in the vignettes, “without a master…[and that they] are shown functioning within their own society, rather than being an isolated exotic reference within a controlled European setting.”¹⁷ But I would argue that they do exist within that controlled setting simply because it is impossible to separate the effects of coloniality and modernity, after hundreds of years of oppression. We can even see this today.

Though humanizing enslaved people is honorable, the problem with this viewpoint of the idealized setting is that it takes the stance of white people and colonizers having the power to bestow progress onto a marginalized group, who already had their own form of progress. The buttons may be miniscule compared to the problems of the world today, but they reinforce the narrative of the helpless enslaved person needing to be saved as well as create a standard that Western culture is the default. 

@gbnews During a tense exchange, commentator Carole Malone argues that "not everything about colonisation was wrong", claiming there were elements that brought development and infrastructure, However, political analyst Jonathan Liss passionately refuted her stance, declaring "There were no benefits, it was wrong, full stop" #News #Uknews #Colonisation #Carolemalone #Jonathanlis #Britain #Brits #British #GBnews ♬ original sound – GB News

In this recent news segment, during a panel discussion on the effects of colonization, Carole Malone, news reporter of the British station GBNews, asserted that, “not everything about colonization was wrong.”¹⁸ She along with her co-hosts listed that the British brought education, sanitation, and transportation. This perception is problematic as it assumes that without British or other Western influences, these countries would remain primitive and in squalor. Their guest, political analyst Jonathan Liss, attempted to point out that the victims of colonization indeed had their own infrastructure, it just was not British, and therefore was perceived as not good enough. This is the root problem of coloniality and modernity.

It is evident that these buttons are a small piece to a larger puzzle of a complicated and painful history of colonization in modern society. Although Elizabeth Thames attempted to introduce a unique and compelling argument that the painted buttons were tools of anti-slavery, there were elements of early Modern European art that were unaddressed, particularly the use of Black/White visual contrast as a means to other African diasporic people. Also the defence of the presence of Black representation in a white space as proof of abolitionism reads as faux-altruistic and is not as pro-Black as it seems. Visual culture and iconography can be powerful and effective methods of bringing awareness and promoting change, but those efforts are futile without the self-determination of the marginalized group.

Throughout this essay, I presented a series of questions that challenged the narratives surrounding the buttons and abolitionist art. On top of the critique of Thames’ examinations, I want to propose a discussion surrounding the categorization practices by institutions. One of my closing questions surround how they should be addressed in in a collection. Simply put, how could the buttons be categorized now? As previously mentioned, these objects are considered “Haitian” objects despite having a European creator. This is not solely directed to Cooper Hewitt, or even the Metropolitan Museum of Art, rather it calls into question the categorization methods in museums. Should an item’s content take precedence over its author/creator? Decolonial insurgency would then ask, is it helpful or harmful to class them as Caribbean when actual Afro-Caribbeans did not have a hand in creating them?

Footnotes

1. “Button (Haiti).” n.d. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18383255/. ↩︎
2. Thames, Emily Kathleen. 2013. “‘Les boutons de l’habit de gala de Toussaint L’Ouverture’ Questions of Authenticity, Use, and Meaning.” Journal-article. Athanor xxxi (January): 46. ↩︎
3.  Thames, “‘Les boutons’” ↩︎
4.  Thames, 48 ↩︎
5.  Stoichita, Victor I. 2019. Darker Shades: The Racial Other in Early Modern Art. Reaktion Books. ↩︎
6.  Mignolo, Walter D., and Catherine E. Walsh. 2018. On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis. Durham, -: Duke University Press, 34. ↩︎
7. Thames 45 ↩︎
8.  Stoichita, Darker Shades, 99–102 ↩︎
9.  James, Erica Moiah. 2019. “Decolonizing Time.” Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art 2019 (44): 8–23. https://doi.org/10.1215/10757163-7547406. ↩︎
10. Bellhouse, Mary L. “Candide Shoots the Monkey Lovers: Representing Black Men in Eighteenth-Century French Visual Culture.” Political Theory 34, no. 6 (2006): 767. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20452508. ↩︎
11.  Stoichita 103 ↩︎
12.  Memorial to the abolition of slavery – Nantes (France). 2024. “The long struggle for abolition | Memorial to the abolition of slavery – Nantes (France).” April 19, 2024. https://memorial.nantes.fr/en/the-long-struggle-for-abolition/. ↩︎
13.  Guyatt, M. 2000. “The Wedgwood Slave Medallion: Values in eighteenth-century design.” Journal of Design History 13 (2): 97. https://doi.org/10.1093/jdh/13.2.93. ↩︎
14.  Buttons. n.d. Gouache paint on ivory verre affixed to glass with ivory backing and edged with gilt metal. Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, United States of America. ↩︎
15.  Bhabha, Homi. 1984. “Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse.” October 28 (January): 125. https://doi.org/10.2307/778467. ↩︎
16. Thames 50 ↩︎
17.  Thames 49 ↩︎
18.  “GB News on TikTok.” n.d. TikTok. https://www.tiktok.com/@gbnews/video/7502022817920158998. ↩︎