. “Hottentot Venus” was the moniker given to a series of women exhibited in sexually suggestive, ethnic curiosity shows in England and France in the early nineteenth century. He also molded a plaster cast of Baartman’s body and preserved her genitalia (considered “enormous” in comparison to white women) and her brain (considered “small” in comparison to white men) in jars of formaldehyde fluid, which remained on display at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris as late as the 1980s. In March 1815, these three men subjected Baartman to scientific observations in the Jardin du Roi (King’s Garden) of the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle. LOCATION: Lesotho, South Africa Writer Small things in this world are mine. Lindfors, Bernth. Ta-Nehisi Coates reprints Alexander's best-known poem: The Venus Hottentot (1825). Gilman, Sander. Aside from these racial and political elements, the “Hottentot Venus” show would also capitalize on prurient interests in so-called primitive sexuality, described in the tall-tale accounts of explorers who fabricated stories of “Hottentot” women’s oversized buttocks and mysterious genitalia excess— rumored to be an extra flap of skin covering the vaginal area and known as the “Hottentot apron.”. Instead, it — rather, she — was a person named Sarah Baartman. He asked Reaux if he would allow Sara to be studied as a science specimen to which Reaux agreed. These poems range from personal memory to cultural history to human personae: John Coltrane, Frida Kahlo, Nelson Mandela, and "The Venus … 2005. Discussion of themes and motifs in Elizabeth Alexander's The Venus Hottentot. Strother, Z. S. 1999. Baartman was already a married woman when she experienced one of these extermination raids on her community. The Hottentot Venus was not a piece of art at all. Sharpley-Whiting, T. Denean. 1985. "The Venus Hottentot." The Hottentot Venus, with buttocks of enormous size and with genitalia fabled to be equally disproportionate, was part of this human menagerie. The courts eventually dismissed the case but mandated that Cezar discontinue the show’s indecency. These complaints soon led to the intervention of the African Institution, an abolitionist organization that brought Hendrik Cezar to trial for practicing slavery and public indecency. Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. Altick, Richard. The book, the Venus Hottentot, by Elizabeth Alexander, is a powerful conflation of what it means to be an african-american woman artist in a space that is dominated by the aestheticized science of the white male patriarchy. Baartman was born during the period of Dutch colonization in South Africa. 5. https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/hottentot-venus, "Hottentot Venus Elegant facts await me. Nonetheless, Cezar advertised the show and billed Baartman as a “most correct specimen of her race.” The “Hottentot Venus” exhibition, which took place at 225 Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly Circus, was instantly popular and inspired bawdy ballads and political cartoons, thus demonstrating how the icon of the Hottentot Venus became a fixture in the culture. The Khoi Khoi were derogatorily referred to as “Hottentots,” while the San were called “Bushmen.” Both Khoi Khoi and San were labeled “missing links” between humans and apes in racist scientific arguments because of their hunter-gatherer lifestyles and unusual speech patterns, which the Dutch dismissed as guttural animal sounds. 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