Kehinde Wiley, Portrait of a Florentine Nobleman, 2018, oil on linen, 96 x 72 in. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2019.14. Photography by Edward C. Robison III.
Portrait of a Florentine Nobleman, based on Francesco Salviati’s sixteenth-century painting, features Shontay Haynes of St. Louis, Missouri. Apart from her pose (borrowed from the source painting) all of the decisions about presentation—from the subject’s outfit to her tattoos—reinforce a sense of agency and self-creation. As the painted floral patterns weave over the top of this confident heroine, Wiley affirms Haynes’s belonging within an often exclusive art historical tradition.