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Podcast: EMPIRE LINES
Episode: Linen Market, Dominica, Agostino Brunias (c. 1780)
Description: Dr. Tessa Murphy retouches European renderings of colonial Caribbean commerce in the 18th century, through Agostino Brunias' oil painting, Linen Market, Dominica.
Painted around 1780, Linen Market, Dominica depicts a Caribbean port town teeming with commerce. Great ships and local Kalinago canoes straddle the coastline, as people of all races and classes and barter for carrots, calabashes, and callaloo, the new global goods of imperial exchange. Italian artist Agostino Brunias' bustling waterfront conveys the convergence of cultures in Britain's so-called Ceded Islands, acquired from France following its success in the Seven Years War. Brunias' image of abundance depicts...