Agostino Brunias

Born in Rome around 1730, Brunias spent his early career as a painter after graduating from the Accademia di San Luca.

After he befriended prominent Scottish architect Robert Adam and accompanied him back to Britain, Brunias left for the British West Indies to continue his career in painting under the tutelage of Sir William Young.

Historians have made disparate assessments of Brunias's works; some praised his subversive depiction of West Indian culture, while others claimed it romanticised the harshness of plantation life.

[3][4] Brunias met the prominent Scottish architect Robert Adam, who was on a Grand Tour studying the "magnificent ruins of Italy" between 1754 and 1756.

[1][2][3] Surviving examples of Brunias' early work include five paintings in the classical style, which were commissioned to decorate the breakfast room at Kedleston Hall, now housed at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

[1] During Brunias' absence from the West Indies, Dominica and St. Vincent were captured and occupied by the French; Britain did not regain the colonies until the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1783.

Although he occasionally painted landscapes and other subject matter, classically-influenced figures are the most common feature in his early work as well as in his later West Indian pieces.

[8][12] Brunias has also been noted by dress historians for his varied and diverse depictions of the styles of clothing worn by West Indians during the period.

[8][12] At the same time, several historians have argued that Brunias' images of communities of color romanticized and obscured the harsh realities of life on West Indian plantations.

Edwards was a staunch proslavery activist and an opponent of abolitionism, and interpreted the Brunias engravings to support his argument that enslavement was a happy and humane condition.

[1] Born in Italy and achieving success in Britain, Agostino Brunias spent more than twenty-five years in the West Indies, where he primarily resided in Dominica.

[citation needed] He started a family in Rouseau, Dominica around 1774, shortly before he returned to Britain, and was then separated from them by the outbreak of the American War of Independence.