Congolese Nude by Clement Serneels 1912-1991

Serneels was mainly interested in painting African women, and in this painting the subject has a self-consciously erotic air, as if she had been carefully posed to tickle a pornographic imagination.
Mike Phillips, curator

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This girl is probably in a European’s house and she is very young. The relation between the African servant and the white colonialist was very ambiguous at the time – some of these women ended up being mistresses. The features emphasised are very western. Beauty ideals in Africa range, but, she does not show a gap in the teeth, no scarification and she is not plump or as we say in Africa ‘wellendowed’, which in Africa can be a sign of beauty.
Hassan Arero, anthropologist