Servant Gallery

Saartje Baartman, also known as The Hottentot Venus

Saartje ('Sarah') Baartman (1789-1815), also known as The Hottentot Venus - an African servant girl from South Africa's Eastern Cape of the Khoisan tribe brought to London in 1810 & exhibited at freak shows and private events there and in Paris, where she died 1815, with sections of her body preserved and displayed at Paris's Museum of Man (until 1974). Her remains were repartriated to South Africa and re-interred in 2002. Date: 1811

© Mary Evans Picture Library

The Melton Breakfast by Sir Francis Grant

A rare mezzotint of High Leicestershire Lights of the past enjoying breakfast before a hunt. From left to right are Massey Stanley, the Earl of Wilton, Count Matuszevic, Lord Gardner, Walter Little Gilmour, Lyne Stevens, a servant, Sir Frederick Johnstone, Lord Rokeby, Lord Forester, Lord Kinnaird and Roland Errington. Lord Forester, standing by the fire, became Master of the Belvoir, and hunted that country for twenty-eight years. Mr Gilmour and Lord Gardner were well known for their cooks and cellars and the latter was also a poet. Mr Errington was Master of the Quorn from 1835 to 1838. The artist, once President of the Royal Academy, was knighted at the age of fifty-six and lived most of his life in Melton in the heart of Leicestershire hunting country. His family preferred that he should be buried there rather than in St. Paul's Cathedral. Date: 1835

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

The Queen of Sheba Worshipping the Wood of the True Cross

BAT235262 The Queen of Sheba Worshipping the Wood of the True Cross, The Reception of the Queen of Sheba by King Solomon (c.1015-977) and The Battle of Milvian Bridge, from the Legend of the True Cross cycle, completed 1464 (fresco) (post-restoration) by Francesca, Piero della (c.1415-92); Basilica San Francesco, Arezzo, Tuscany, Italy; Photo A© NicolA² Orsi Battaglini; Italian, out of copyright

© © Nicolò Orsi Battaglini / Bridgeman Images