@ARTICLE{10.21494/ISTE.OP.2025.1350, 

TITLE={Exhibitions of the Artistic and Scientific Exploitation of Baartman (ca. 1775-1815), the "Hottentot Venus"}, 
  
AUTHOR={John R. Dolan, }, 
	
JOURNAL={Art and Science}, 
	
VOLUME={9}, 

NUMBER={Issue 3}, 
	
YEAR={2025}, 

URL={https://www.openscience.fr/Exhibitions-of-the-Artistic-and-Scientific-Exploitation-of-Baartman-ca-1775}, 
	
DOI={10.21494/ISTE.OP.2025.1350}, 
	
ISSN={2515-8767}, 
	
ABSTRACT={Baartman was a woman of the indigenous Khoisan people of South Africa. In 1810, when working as a housemaid in Cape Town, she was coaxed to travel to England to be shown as a savage African, the "Hottentot Venus". She was exhibited as an ethno-erotic freak in Britain and Paris. After her death in late 1815, her body was dissected and George Cuvier published lurid details of her anatomy in an 1817 report. Her remains were kept, and periodically displayed, in the Museum of Natural History (Paris) until finally being repatriated to South Africa in 2002. The tragic story of Baartman’s exploitation has been the subject of many books, films, and articles. Here the focus is on two relatively poorly documented aspects of her exploitation by both artists and scientists. First shown is the artistic exploitation through an exhibition of the depictions of her by the artists of satirical prints, a very popular medium in Baartman’s time. The depictions of her, always in profile with greatly exaggerated buttocks, became in satirical prints, a generic portrayal of African women. In line with the orthodox racism of the early 1800’s, the depictions emphasized the differences between and Europeans and African peoples, the "otherness" of Africans. Secondly, in an exhibition tracing the use of images and characteristics of her, especially (but not only) her skull and brain, the scientific exploitation of Baartman will be shown. The features of her morphology were used to support the divisive view of the inferiority of African peoples. This began with an 1816 report on her visit to the Professors of the Natural History Museum and Cuvier’s 1817 report on the dissection of her corpse, and continued on well into 1970’s.}}