Portrait d'Une Négresse

Michelle Obama Nude Portrait
[This is one title I can find for the work.
Another is simply First Lady Michelle Obama]
By: Karine Percheron-Daniels

[I cannot find a date for this work, and even Percheron-Daniels doesn't give a date on her site. I would assume it is from midway into Obamas presidency, which could make it between 2011-2012]

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A Spanish magazine has a crude portrayal of Michelle Obama on its recent cover (see above image). It is after a nineteenth century painting of a slave woman titled Portrait d'Une Négresse by which is on display at the Louvre in Paris. The painter of Portrait d'Une Négresse is Marie-Guillemine Benoist, whose paintings are mostly of female, and feminine, figures both domestic and political. The famous characters she paints are related to prominent male figures, and their prestigious positions are often due to these associations.

Marie-Guilhelmine Benoist
Portrait d'Une Négresse, 1800
Oil on canvas
Paris, Musée du Louvre

Benoist also paints many domestic scenes, mostly of mothers with their young children. So, although a female painter, her subjects were very much feminine (and not feminist).

Benoist's painting is "interpreted" by Karine Percheron-Daniels, another female artist, although a 21st century post-modern one, whose repertoire is re-interpretations of paintings and works of famous figures whom she unclothes in various levels of nudity.

I thought that perhaps Percheron-Daniels actually paints her "parodies" but true to the mediocrity of post-modern artists, she is described in many sites as a "mixed-media" artist. Wherever I find works of hers that look like they were drawn (or painted), it is clear that she is a mediocre painter and drawer.

Here is how this site describes her technique:

The photo was created by photo-shopping or super-imposing Mrs. Obama’s face onto a black female drawing from 1800 entitled “Portrait d’une negresse” by Marie-Guillemine Benoist who was a French artist. The combination of altered artwork and cover photo is part of a “Famous Nudes” series created by artist Karine Percheron-Daniels.

Is it surprising that this "artist" (albeit one whose repertoire is unclothing famous personalities) might some day be tempted to paint Mrs. Obama with her upper body exposed? Although Obama has never shown us any crude, half-exposed breasts as some kind of fashion statement, she has given us plenty of shots of her bare shoulders with intimidatingly large muscles. Perhaps that is one of the reasons Percheron-Daniels chose Michelle Obama as her subject, and in that particular pose (notwithstanding the "blacks and slavery" angle, which she uses to demonize America, and particularly white America).


Perhaps this is the model that allowed Percheron-Daniels to depict the First Lady in semi-nudity. The photo above is from a post I did on Michelle Obama's "off-one-shoulder" style which she wore at the State Dinner for Chinese President Hu Jintao in 2011 (I describe the gown as "some kind of modern tied-dye African costume" so there's another angle Percheron-Daniels might be following). Mrs. Obama has no qualms about pulling down her bodice as far as possible without causing a national scandal to show us her toned muscles which she cultivates in the gym.

So far, there's no news on how the First Lady is taking this depiction of her.