Agostino Brunias

Agostino Brunias was born in Rome around 1730 and trained at the Accademia di San Luca, where he won Third Prize in painting in 1754. His path to the Caribbean began with a chance encounter: after meeting Scottish architect Robert Adam during a Grand Tour of Europe, Brunias spent several years studying Italian ruins alongside him before following Adam to England in 1758. There he worked as a draughtsman, decorating the interiors of some of England's finest homes. His paintings from this period, including five classical works commissioned for Kedleston Hall, are now held at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

In 1764, Brunias left London for the British West Indies in the employ of Sir William Young, 1st Baronet, who was overseeing the administration of newly ceded Caribbean territories following the Treaty of Paris. He accompanied Young through the islands, sketching as he went, and eventually settled in Roseau, the capital of Dominica. The West Indies gave Brunias his true subject matter. His paintings of creole street life, indigenous Carib customs, and the social world of 18th-century island society produced a body of work unlike anything being made elsewhere at the time.

Brunias returned to England briefly in the 1770s, exhibiting West Indian paintings at the Royal Academy and publishing engravings of his Caribbean scenes. He returned to Dominica in 1784 and remained there until his death in 1796. His influence reached well beyond his lifetime: during the Haitian Revolution, Toussaint Louverture famously wore eighteen buttons on his waistcoat, each decorated with a miniature reproduction of a different Brunias scene. Engravings of his work continued to be published after his death, cementing his place as one of the most important chroniclers of Caribbean life in the colonial era.