William HOGARTH,
Marriage à la mode: Scene IV, The Toilette, c.1743

In paintings and prints black servants are one of the many signs of affluence and luxury, and their representation reflects the imbalanced power relationship between Europe and Africa.
Historian David Dabydeen presented an extensive discussion of this subject in his book on Hogarth’s Blacks, where he highlights their role as moral and social commentators – hidden/silent voices smiling at the ridiculousness of aristocratic life. In a related essay on Hogarth’s African’s, David Bindman further supports this, noting that “In the prevailing ideology of ‘politeness’ the ‘savage’ is not only ‘other’ to man of civility, but his ‘savagery’ can be correlated with the primitive and selfish desires of Europeans, which are held under restraint by education and sound morals.”

In this painting, Hogarth places his black figures inside the dressing room of a new Countess. She has recently been married, but is already preoccupied by the advances made by her lawyer, ‘Silvertongue’ (to her right). The entire scene is dotted with visual signs of rampant sexual life – The painting of the Rape of Ganymede on the wall; The black spots on the faces of the two men on the left of the painting, signifying syphilis; the adult novel entitled ‘Le Sopha’, on the floor.

Both of the black figures in the painting also add to the visual metaphors. The black servant in green serves a cup of melting chocolate to the excitable young woman dressed as a shepherdess. We can see that her dramatic admiration for the castrato singer, goes against the decorum assigned to a young woman of any standing, and it is this contradiction that probably causes the servant’s wry smile - It is worth looking at the ways Hogarth has rendered hands in the painting. Consider the contrast between the delicate hands of the different white men and that of our servant.

The younger, elaborately dressed boy sitting on the floor is similar to those blacks treated as ‘pets’ that would have been a common fixture in the private rooms of aristocratic mistresses. Consequently his intimate knowledge of the Countesses’ affairs places him as the moral commentator, hence the grin on his face whist he points to the horns on the figure of Actaeon. These horns are a visual connection to the cuckold’s horns (an allusion to infidelity), and therefore the servant is cunningly suggesting the Countesses’ future adultery.

link to National Gallery site