The true likeness of Toussaint Louverture.

• Author: Daguillard, Fritz
• Position: Gallery Place

Toussaint Louverture led the late-eighteenth-century slave revolt in Saint-Domingue, as Haiti was then known. Called the "Black Spartacus," he repulsed a British invasion and proved himself a brilliant military strategist. In 1802, Napoleon sent a large army under General Charles Leclerc to Saint-Domingue to reinstall French control. Although Louverture was forced to surrender to Leclerc and died in a French prison a year later, yellow fever destroyed the French army. Louverture had effectively prevented the restoration of slavery in Saint-Domingue.

Portraits of Toussaint Louverture are many and bear little resemblance to one another. It was Louverture's very fame that led to this variety of likenesses. Up until the beginning of the twentieth century, every black man whose features were not well known and who could not be clearly identified, was held to be Louverture. Attaching his name to a work upgraded its value, increasing profits for art dealers, and allowing collectors to claim a connection to this fascinating and legendary figure.

Overlooking these dubious works, most of which are drawings, I'd like to highlight the engravings on which the name Louverture is printed in the caption. They date from the early nineteenth century and inspired later works, including paintings and sculptures.

Half-a-dozen portraits of Louverture appeared in 1802, the year of the Leclerc expedition. Two of them appear in the frontispiece of biographies of Louverture by Cousin D'Avallon and Louis Dubroca, respectively. In both cases, Louverture wears a bicorn hat. The depiction published by Dubroca is the work of engraver Francois Bonneville. It also appears in Portraits des hommes celebres de la revolution (Volume IV), thereby becoming fairly widespread and the least rare of the early portraits of Louverture (figure 1).

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Bonneville, well regarded in his time, has left portraits of several prominent men, including Jorge Biassou, Henri Christophe, Etienne Mentor, and Thomas-Alexandre Dumas. Christophe's traits are well known but hardly resemble those that Bonneville gives him. However, the portrait of General Dumas is accurate. Since Dumas lived in France, he likely posed for Bonneville. The depiction of Mentor is based on a drawing by Valain, an artist based in Paris, where Mentor traveled frequently. In the case of Louverture, as well as in those of Biassou and Christophe, we do not know whether Bonneville has based his work on a drawing he...