Melbourne Portrait Group Seminar | Deirdre Coleman

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Automaton clock representing François-Dominique Toussaint (L'Ouverture). Melbourne, Johnston Collection.

Automaton clock representing François-Dominique Toussaint (L’Ouverture). Melbourne, Johnston Collection.

Deirdre Coleman, ‘Touissant Louverture in the Johnston House Museum’

The Haitian revolution was the only successful slave revolution in history, transforming the French colony of Saint-Domingue into the independent republic of Haiti. To what extent can we see the Johnston House Museum’s automaton clock and other ‘portraits’ of Toussaint L’Ouverture as part of the West’s disavowal of the Haitian revolution’s political goals of racial equality and racial liberation? Continue reading →