Category talk:Portrait paintings with black slaves

Why are the black servants in these portraits described as slaves? Would they be labelled as slaves if they were white, or would they be described as servants instead?

This insistence that they had to be slaves seems to be an unconscious fear to deny them their place as persons who are subjects of the portraits as much as the white nobles and royals are. In are number of them they way they are presented gives them equal if not superior status as the whites in the portraits and in some of them their portrayals dominate the images.

Is there any reasons why the most memorable images some nobles left behind were those featuring them with their black servants rather than the family members one would expect?

Unless there is written contemporary evidence from the period that their legal status was that of slaves they should be described as servants as would be the case if they were white. — 18 August 2014‎ 95.85.25.32 talk‎

Absolutly right. @Cathy Richards: it might concern you, because you made this category --Marc-AntoineV (talk) 07:26, 5 July 2020 (UTC)