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00:02For almost 200 years this painting was described simply as a portrait of Lady Elizabeth Murray
00:08and it was assumed her unidentified companion was a maid. Only in the 1980s was it discovered
00:15that far from being a servant, the other girl was in fact Lady Elizabeth's cousin, Dido Elizabeth
00:21Bell. Hers is a story that takes us from the slave ships of the Mediterranean to the heart
00:28of Georgian high society. When I look back through the history of Western art, what I'm inevitably
00:34confronted with is a lot of faces that look like mine, i.e. they're white. So what really
00:41drew me to this portrait of Dido and Elizabeth is the fact that it's so unusual to see a picture
00:48from this time that depicts a black subject and a white subject with equal status. There's something
00:54about Dido that I find incredibly human and really compelling and I also think that from
01:01the tiny amount I know about her back story already that it's going to lead us into some
01:07much darker areas in the history of fashion and I'm really keen to confront those areas
01:15and to explore them further. From what can be seen, Dido's dress appears both elegant and
01:21simple but I'm interested to find out from Ninia what type of gown it may be. This portrait,
01:27dress-wise, a little bit of an enigma, isn't it? It is. It is quite difficult to work out
01:33exactly what she's wearing. What are your thoughts here? There are so many possibilities with how
01:41we could interpret that garment. Unfortunately, like so many portraits, we can't see her back
01:47and it's particularly obscured by all these kind of layers of sashes and things in exactly the places
01:54where we would look for clues as to how it's constructed. And this sort of basket of fruit
01:59that she's carrying as well. Yeah. Do we have any other portraits that we can sort of compare
02:05in terms of types of garment that we think she might be wearing? Yeah, there are actually,
02:09helpfully, lots of paintings of 18th century women wearing these more relaxed, exotic styles and,
02:15um, helpfully, they're not all holding something in front of them like Dido is. Great. So this lady
02:20here, for example, you can see how very loose and cut this gown is. It's a simple crossover and I
02:27do
02:27think that the neckline that Dido's got there with this V shape can only be achieved in the 18th
02:33century really by, by having a crossover. Yeah. Wrapping front. This is very, very similar, isn't it?
02:38Yeah. I think that's a real strong contender for how the front would, would look if we could,
02:42if we could see it. Now, some of the reading I've been doing about this portrait describes it as
02:47silver. And it's my understanding that at this time, silver was quite a popular colour for wedding
02:52dresses. Wedding dresses would have been a bit more formal than this. What kind of fabric do you think
02:58this is? Well, I don't believe it is silver. I've got a sample here of some silk that has
03:05silver thread woven into it. And, um, it doesn't drape in the same way that I think the fabric
03:12Dido is wearing drapes. It's quite stiff because the only way to incorporate silver into a silk fabric
03:19in the 18th century was to weave actual threads of silver. So it's, it's metal. Right. And although
03:24it's a soft metal, it still changes the nature of the fabric. Yeah. And I think this is too stiff
03:30for what we want to achieve with Dido. Yeah. It almost stays into the shape that you fold it.
03:36It does. Yeah. It's lovely. It's beautiful. And it would make a lovely formal wedding dress,
03:40but that's not what we're doing. No. So what I think we should be looking at is, um, satin.
03:46A silk satin is really a very, very typical choice for these kinds of, uh, informal robe and wrapping
03:52gown and a la Turk styles. Yeah. Um, I think we definitely want a satin that's a, you know,
04:00very cool kind of ivory possibly, or even a light gray, um, which could be interpreted as silver,
04:06but not actual silver. We have very little information with which to piece together Dido's
04:13story. But what we do know is that she was born in 1761, the illegitimate daughter of Captain John Lindsay
04:20and Maria Bell, an enslaved African woman on a Spanish ship captured by Lindsay.
04:26At some point in her infancy, Dido was sent to live with her father's uncle, Lord Mansfield,
04:32Britain's Lord Chief Justice and one of the most powerful men of his day.
04:37I'm keen to find out if the portrait can unwrap any secrets of Dido's life.
04:41So I'm meeting art historian Vicky Coltman at Schoon Palace, Lord Mansfield's birthplace where the
04:47painting now hangs. Now I've completely fallen in love with this portrait, um, but I'm very
04:53interested to hear you contextualise this for me. How unusual is this for a late 18th century portrait?
05:01Well, in terms of later 18th century British art history, this is a really atypical image,
05:07image, mainly because we have these two women, one with a black complexion, one with a white
05:13complexion, presented more or less as social equals. And it's extremely rare to find that
05:20on canvas, because what we're dealing with in this period is a long pictorial tradition of black
05:27servant portraiture in which they're shown as very much subservient to their female mistresses.
05:33And what we see here is an image from that mid 17th century period, which is absolutely typical.
05:41We have here this black servant on the right. Also notice how he's looking up towards the female
05:47sitter. And really he's there to say to you and I, the external viewers, direct your gaze to her.
05:55So he becomes a kind of interlocutor for her beauty. And so if we then leap forward over a hundred
06:04years,
06:05what we can see immediately is how there's none of that subservience. I think this is a image that
06:12speaks of things like sisterhood, companionship. One theory is that Dido has maybe been dressed in
06:20clothes that aren't her own to highlight some kind of exoticism. Do you think that could be the case?
06:28So Dido's dress, so what people have made of this, and you're quite right, is they've looked at the
06:34turban and they've suggested that her dress may be indebted to the idea of masquerades, which are very
06:41popular at this time, which are kind of fancy dress parties. I'm not so sure, but what we can say
06:48is that it looks to me to be very shiny and glimmery for a day dress. So I think it's
06:53unlikely
06:54that she's going to be in the poultry yard or the dairy wearing this dress. I personally am slightly
07:01sceptical of the sort of over-exoticised readings of this portrait. A lot has to be made of the turban.
07:10The turban was very fashionable headgear at the time, I think. And definitely due to it being a sort of
07:18slightly exotic object. But I think that that doesn't necessarily confer on Dido this kind of
07:24exotic objectified status. And that would also fit in with the style of dress from what we can work out
07:30from the actual portrait itself. And the fact that it's more dynamic, she's not wearing any kind of
07:37panniers or hoops under her skirts in the way that Elizabeth is. I find Dido as a subject much more
07:44compelling. She looks like the one who's fun, the one who I want to hang out with, the one that
07:49I want
07:49to spend time with. I absolutely agree. I think Dido looks incredibly mischievous, actually. I'd much
07:55rather hang out with Dido.
07:59While I'm finding out about Dido's life, Ninja is trying to discover more about the style of her dress.
08:05What's really frustrating about Dido is that her bowl of fruit and her sashes and her arm are all
08:11exactly... In the crucial area. In the point that would really tell us what's going on with that.
08:16Because the other possibility that you were playing with, was it this one or the... No, this one. Oh, the
08:21back.
08:21Yes. Was it the back might be cut as a loose sackback? Yes. To give it a bit more fullness
08:26below. And also
08:28because that's a fashionable element. You know why I don't think it can be a sackback? I've just thought of
08:32this. Is that the way that this top edge of the pleats is covered up in the 18th century is
08:39with
08:39an extra strip, which then goes down here. And it's the robing, isn't it? And it's a classic... She
08:46doesn't have it. Look, and it doesn't fit with anything else in the cut of that toile. So yeah,
08:52I was uncomfortable about that. Thank you. The other possibility is that something like this jacket,
09:00it... That's very simple, isn't it? Yes. And actually quite loose. If you imagine that as
09:04full length and this gusset here expanding out... Well, I kind of had that thought too,
09:10and I like that. I did put that back onto this one. Oh, that's that one. Yes. But it hasn't
09:15worked for you.
09:16Look. Oh. It's kind of... It's nice. The back is nice and the seams are nice, but the way it
09:22hangs
09:22down now. It's neither one thing nor another, that. So yeah, it doesn't work for me. That garment is not
09:31a classic Western garment like her cousin is wearing. It is different, and I think that's the
09:36point. They're making her different. So we don't know whether she had that herself or whether it was
09:43part of the painter's clothing. We don't know anything about it, sadly, do we? We don't know
09:48the story that led up to the painting and what her thoughts were. And we assume she was put into
09:56that to make a contrast. But she might have chosen it. What's this one? That is a bed gown. Do
10:04you
10:04think that's a possibility? It is. I think you're going to have to do another twirl.
10:14Well, we have the new twirl. What I really like is this all-in-one sleeve. I think it's just
10:20the most
10:21convincing. Yeah. And hers isn't actually huge. Some of them are very big, but hers is not.
10:26We could probably make that a little bit smaller. And that's really snug on her, isn't it, with it?
10:32Yes, and it really runkles down. It must have a little button or something there, I think.
10:38Yeah. Yeah. Three twirls lucky. Oh, thank goodness.
10:45Raised by the Mansfields alongside her cousin, Lady Elizabeth, Dido grew up in luxury at Kenwood
10:51House, a world away from the experiences of most black people in England at the time.
10:56S.I. Martin is an expert on black British history, and I'm hoping he can tell me more about Dido's
11:02life at Kenwood. This is, you know, a far cry from the way that most people in Georgian Britain
11:08would have grown up. But I would imagine that for a black woman, it's especially unusual.
11:14There was something very particular about Dido's situation, though it wasn't unique.
11:17There were other black people, particularly people of mixed background, who had, similar to Dido's own
11:24parentage, one white male father and usually a black enslaved mother, who were lucky enough to enjoy
11:31some degree of the luxuries that Dido would have enjoyed. But it's true to say that her experiences
11:36overall were very different from the vast majority of black people living in Britain at the time.
11:41And she worked within the grounds as well, didn't she, at the home. Was that usual?
11:48Yeah, work of the sort that Dido was engaged in, low-level household duties, looking after the dairy,
11:55working with Nord Mansfield, note-taking, light accounts. These would be the occupations of a
12:00gentlewoman of the period. And perhaps Dido considered herself as such. But they wouldn't have been the
12:05duties with which the lady of the house would have bothered herself. And I doubt very much if Lady
12:11Elizabeth would have had anything to do in those domains at all. One interesting feature of the likeness
12:19of Dido in the painting is that she is wearing both a turban and an ostrich feather. Yeah. And
12:26although at the time the wearing of turbans had become quite fashionable amongst some parts of the
12:32upper classes, it's also a signifier for a lot of young black people in domestic service. So Dido's life
12:39here at Kenwood, her family, the relationships that they had, she was clearly cared for. Although we know
12:46that she was thorned on and that she was a great favourite and confidant of Lord Mansfield, Dido is
12:56illegitimate. She did not always dine with her blood relations as they were. She is definitely outside
13:04family. This would have been a very difficult issue just to negotiate socially and culturally to meet
13:11others outside the family, even within the family. It would have caused problems and that would have
13:16set her apart. I'm starting to get more of a sense of Dido's world, but I feel that many of
13:22the details
13:22of her life are still hidden. Last time I saw Ninya, details of the dress were proving equally elusive.
13:29So I'm looking forward to finding out what decisions have been made. This is the pattern. It's a very
13:34common style amongst various ethnic garments across the world. It's the idea that you want to use as
13:42much of the material as possible, have no wastage at all because materials are very expensive and
13:46time consuming to make. And it's making the most of the materials as you cut, so planning ahead.
13:52So if you look at this, this is the neck. It's going to come out of there.
13:59Yeah. This is the sleeve and this is the body. Great. And this piece that we cut out of there
14:05to make the sleeve fits very cunningly down here. That's clever, isn't it? Yeah, to increase the size
14:13of the skirt. I see. The joy of it is because it's such a simple cut, all the beauty is
14:19going to come
14:19from the material itself. Oh, and it is so beautiful. It is wonderful. Excellent. I cannot wait to see it.
14:26Wow, look at that. So you can see how you could interpret that as silver. Yeah, absolutely.
14:31And it's not. It's just pure silk. It does look silvery, doesn't it? It really does. It's very
14:37pleasing. It's a very pale grey, but it's pure silk and there's no actual metal thread in it,
14:42so it's going to be ever so soft and drapey and gorgeous. Yeah, it's just absolutely beautiful,
14:48isn't it? It has wonderful depth, doesn't it? Yeah, it really does. It really does.
14:54So this is looking very exciting. Yes, I've done about six versions of this now,
15:00but using muslin rather than the real silk. So here I'm just doing the draping of this
15:08line here. So would you like to have a go at trying to emulate that? Yeah, I'd love to. So
15:14you want to
15:15pull this back on itself like that. Okay. So, and then will it all be pinned? Yeah. How is it
15:23going
15:23to be sort of secured? Once we've played around with it and draped it happily, then I'll sew it so
15:30that you can't see the stitching. I see. Right, right. Which will also be helped with disguising it
15:37because of the jewels on her turban. Yeah. So if there are any stitches that can't be helped but
15:42to be seen, then they'll be covered with jewels. Right. So... Oh, that looks fab. I love those pleats.
15:49So I'll just pin it a bit here so that it doesn't move. Now my instinct is to try to
15:59make it a bit more
16:00elaborate and use this to create some kind of like fan shape at the side or at the back,
16:05but that wouldn't be quite accurate, would it? No, this is quite a subtle little addition,
16:11I think. You don't always need so much accessorising to... I have to disagree.
16:19So will this all form the lining? Will we be tucking this in on itself to create the lining?
16:24And then once it's all pinned, I'll sew around the outside so it'll be like a proper brim. Yeah.
16:33This is fun, this bit. You can see immediate returns during this. It's quite satisfying.
16:41I think that's rightly pinned, so we'll just put it on there. Look at that. Lovely. Happy with that.
16:48Yeah. Very little written evidence of Dido's life exists, but she does appear in the household
16:56account books still held at Kenwood House, and I've been given special permission to see them.
17:02Well, I'm here in the glorious surroundings, this amazing neoclassical room, which is the library that
17:09Dido would have spent quite a lot of time in. What I've got here is some of the household accounts,
17:14and so in here we do get some very small glimpses of Dido's life. Dido, quarter allowance due October
17:22the 4th, £5. So she was given £20 a year paid in quarterly instalments. Towards the end of the 1780s,
17:33Dido's allowance was also supplemented by birthday gifts and Christmas gifts as well. We can see one
17:40here to Dido at Christmas by Lord Mansfield's order. Now, this one is probably my all-time favourite,
17:50washing and glazing Dido's bed. Now, what that tells us is that likely her bed was decorated with
17:58chintz hangings. Now, chintz was glazed fabric and was very, very fashionable at this time as well, so
18:05it does give us a sort of insight into Dido's world, into Dido's life here. While the account
18:13books give us a tantalising peak into Dido's home life, we get a more tangible insight from the diary
18:19of Thomas Hutchinson, an American visitor to Lord Mansfield. A black came in after dinner and sat
18:26with the ladies, and after coffee walked with the company in the gardens, one of the young ladies
18:32having her arm within the other. She is neither handsome nor genteel. Heard enough. He calls her
18:39Dido, which I suppose is all the name she has. He knows he has been reproached for showing fondness
18:45for her. I dare say not criminal. Hutchinson's attitude highlights Dido's position perfectly.
18:52She was well loved by her family, but as the daughter of a slave in 18th century England,
18:57she was never going to be accepted as their social equal. The fact is that when this portrait was
19:03painted, Britain's participation in the slave trade was at its height.
19:09By the 18th century, demand for English cotton was booming. Easily washable and colourful, it was
19:15becoming the fashion fabric of choice for the middle classes and a valuable trading commodity driving the
19:21industrial revolution. However, the great wealth this brought the nation was built upon enslaved
19:27labour in Britain's colonies.
19:31To find out more, I meet historian Alan Rice.
19:36So how important to the cotton industry around here was slave produced cotton from America?
19:44Well, in the 1780s and 1790s, slave produced cotton started exploding onto the scene here,
19:51so that a town like Manchester and its environs becomes a kind of world centre of cotton production.
19:57And that kind of bursts through and helps to fuel what becomes the industrial revolution.
20:04And how important was the cotton industry for the British economy?
20:08Very, very important. If you look at 1780, it's two or three percent of the exports from Britain
20:17are finished cotton goods. By the 1820s, 1830s, it's gone up to 22, 23 percent. So it's exceptionally
20:24important for the British economy in that it's a fifth of the economy. Also, a seventh of the
20:30population, the working population are working in cotton-based industries in the mid-19th century.
20:37We don't tend to think of Britain as having such involvement in slavery because with America,
20:46you can still go and visit the old plantations and there's more of a sort of physical legacy.
20:52But here, what we tend to forget, I think, is that there's such an economic legacy of slavery.
20:59The late 18th century is that moment when Britain is the most active slaving power.
21:04Liverpool is going into a frenzy of slave trading and is the largest slave port in the world.
21:11And so Dido's mother, Maria, we don't know much about her. We know she was on a Spanish slave ship
21:18at some point. What would life have been like for her?
21:21Well, life would have been pretty grim. She'd be chained in the hold of a slave ship, usually three or
21:30four hundred people in a very enclosed space. Often the women separated from the men so that they're
21:37available for the crew and the captain. And they'd only been bought up from the hold once a day, maybe
21:46twice a day for exercise. And they'd be made to dance at those points to keep their limbs moving.
21:51We don't know much about the specific ship that Maria was on. We know it was captured by Captain
21:57Lindsay and that he took Maria under his wing. Now, we know nothing about that kind of relationship,
22:06other than the fact that it ended up with him having a black daughter with Maria, Dido Bell.
22:14Out of the millions of black women taken on board slave ships and their immediate descendants,
22:24I think it's an incredible thing that we have a likeness and a portrait of one of those individuals.
22:30Most of those lives, we have nothing to remember them by.
22:42As Lord Chief Justice, Dido's great uncle is one of the most powerful legal voices of the century.
22:48His ruling granting freedom to an escaped slave, James Somerset, is considered one of the most significant
22:54milestones of the abolition movement.
22:56In his will, as well as leaving her some money, Lord Mansfield wrote,
23:02I confirm to Dido Elizabeth Bell her freedom. Despite his landmark ruling, slavery wasn't abolished
23:10in the British Empire for another 40 years. And no one was more aware of Dido's precarious position
23:17than her great uncle.
23:20At times, learning about Dido has been an emotional experience. And I'm looking forward to seeing the
23:26gown of this once forgotten, vivacious young woman be brought back to life.
23:40Oh, wow. Oh my God. The iridescence of the silk is just amazing, isn't it?
23:50It's like a pearl, isn't it? It's really beautiful.
23:52I feel like I'm about to go to a costume ball in the 1920s.
24:00I was not expecting that at all. I was very sceptical of this idea that she may have been
24:05dressed with a specific costume purpose in mind, whether it was being dressed by the artist or
24:10whether it was the idea that this wasn't her actual clothing. But putting it on,
24:16I feel very, very differently about that idea. And it's not just that I'm wearing historic
24:22clothing, that it feels like a costume, but it's the drapery and the fact that there is
24:26a kind of orientalised idea, I suppose.
24:30It's very non-functional, isn't it? That isn't a shawl to keep you warm.
24:34It's there to just make you look nice.
24:36But it's also, it is very, I do wonder how much of an artistic affectation that shawl is.
24:41I mean, if we experimented, for example, with taking this off and then you'd see the lovely
24:45sleeves as well.
24:46Sleeves are so beautiful.
24:47Because actually in the painting that the blue is, is very subtle, it just touches,
24:52isn't it? Which is slightly distracting, but I think it's nicer without.
24:55Does it feel less fancy dressy now? Or does it, does it still feel fancy dressy?
25:00It feels slightly less fancy dressy, but I mean, it's beautiful. The extra length that just means
25:05that you can see or see the ruching and you know, the way that that would have sort of
25:10sparkled in candlelight. Creating something where there are creases shows off the satin to the best.
25:18It really does.
25:19It is a very beautiful satin.
25:20You could just watch it drape for hours. It's quite hypnotic.
25:27Anna, how do you feel about the turban?
25:29I think it was quite successful, actually.
25:31It's definitely got that hat-like feel rather than a turban.
25:35Yeah, there's so much in the painting that you can't see that I think all you could say is it's
25:40one of the possible solutions and it's definitely a successful solution and a plausible one,
25:46but it's not necessarily what she was wearing in the painting.
25:49It could have been one of our other theories.
25:51Yeah.
25:52Couldn't it?
25:52Yeah.
25:53I do want to just lounge around in this forever.
25:57I just wish we had a ball to send you to.
25:59I know.
26:01Why do I never have a ball to go to?
26:06Wearing this gown as we've interpreted it has actually changed my mind about
26:13my theories around Dido and around what she's wearing in this portrait.
26:17Initially, I was really quite certain that she was wearing a version of fashionable dress,
26:23a version of dress that was just becoming fashionable, you know, slightly more informal with these
26:29sort of orientalized elements to it.
26:33However, having worn the ensemble, I'm not so sure that that's the case anymore.
26:39It did feel quite like wearing costume.
26:47Dido still remains tantalizingly just out of reach and in some ways I feel a bit disappointed
26:55that we haven't fully got to the bottom of this story.
26:59I feel very close to Dido and I feel like I've kind of let her down.
27:03I do feel like it's sort of symbolic of wider issues within history at times,
27:10especially reflecting marginalized histories that are more difficult to find out about.
27:15There's more work that needs to go into this and I feel like we will get there with Dido.
27:22I feel like there is more information out there and it will just take a bit more time and a
27:27bit more research.
27:40Over on BBC Two, an art heist, Andrew Graham Dixon,
27:44on what he calls the most shocking crime of the 21st century,
27:48stealing Van Gogh now.
27:50Whilst here on BBC Four, the story of six wives,
27:54Lucy Worsley's series focuses on Anne Boleyn next.
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