#  Black Genius: Race, Science, and the Extraordinary Portrait of Francis Williams: A Lecture by Fara Dabhoiwala 

 



####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **February 4, 2025** 

 04:00PM - 06:00PM EST 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **Harvard Faculty Club, 20 Quincy Street, Cambridge MA 02138**  



 

 



 

 In 1928, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London acquired a previously unknown portrait. It shows the Black Jamaican polymath Francis Williams (c. 1690-1762), dressed in a wig, surrounded by books and scientific instruments. In all of the previous history of Western art, there is no other image like this: a man who had been born into slavery, shown as a gentleman and scholar. The museum presumed it was a satire — but who had made it, when, where, and why, has remained a mystery ever since.

 [Fara Dabhoiwala](http://dabhoiwala.com) will reveal the astonishing story of the painting’s true meaning, its connections to the greatest scientists of the Enlightenment — and Francis Williams’s extraordinary message to posterity.

   ![fara.jpg](/sites/g/files/omnuum10831/files/styles/hwp_1_1__960x960_scale/public/hutchins/files/fara.jpg?itok=jkXO-L17) 

 



 

 



 

 

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