(The Root) — This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. Aesop, the ancient Greek fabulist, is seen here in an animated pose, apparently in the act of telling one…

(The Root) — This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. Joshua Reynolds’ sensitive depiction of a black man, clearly of an actual sitter, is one of several portraits…

(The Root) — This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. This manuscript was made for the court of Emperor Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia, where Conrad of Kyeser served as…

(The Root) — This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. This marvelous bust is one of the very few documents of an actual black person from Greek and Roman…

(The Root) — This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. Over the centuries, European artists depicted a variety of religious figures as black, most notably one of the Three…

(The Root) — This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.  According to tradition, Maurice was a Roman soldier who was martyred for the Christian faith in the late third…

(The Root) — This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. An often overlooked but highly significant component of ancient Greek art involves the representation of black people. From the…

(The Root) — This arresting image is the first in a new weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. As early as the 15th century, black people were imported from…