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Long after his death in 1796, writers remembered Angelo Soliman as a generous and noble family man, a humble intellectual, and a black man both proud of his heritage and able to make light of his dark complexion while residing in a white European capital. Walking through the streets of Vienna in his long, blindingly white caftan over Western vest and breeches and wearing the white turban without which he was never seen in public, Soliman projected a combination of Viennese educated gentleman with North African royal blood and character. Though he was remembered for this consistent sartorial self-expression, this was not the only clothing Soliman wore. As a Freemason playing a central role in initiation ceremonies, he shifted to an all-black ensemble in order to portray a "fearsome" black man. This character's appearance was meant to test the courage of any white European, for this African was violent, impenetrable, and not bound by the laws of either civil society or physics. Earlier in life, as a courtier to Prince Wenzel von Liechtenstein, Soliman wore flowing robes embroidered in silver and gold combined with an ornate Turkish saber, a costume that evoked Ottoman luxury and military might that was nevertheless subject to the Liechtenstein domain and Habsburg state. After his death, the imperial natural history collection displayed Soliman's body to the public. His skin, stretched over a wooden mold, was dressed in feathers and cowry shells. His tattooed thighs were on display and he no longer wore a turban to cover his curly grey hair. This final outfit told the story of an African whose contribution to humanity was reduced to his utility as an object of display in the Habsburg imperial and monarchical palace. These four styles of dress worn by Soliman across the second half of the eighteenth century reveal dual ends: an imaginative representation that asserted status within a hybrid society; and a political representation of the subject, reductive of class and ethnicity, serving prince and state.
Recent decades have seen extensive interest in the place and construction of others in European history. Many scholars, stimulated by Edward Said's Orientalism, define European understanding of race or difference by analyzing art and literature. Their arguments diverge over whether the eighteenth century can be...