American artist John Biggers’s mature work often joined African and African American histories through pattern, symbol, ritual, and the monumental presence of women. Here, cloth suggests labor, inheritance, and cultural transmission, while birds, stars, spheres, and watery ground lift the scene into a cosmological register. The women are shown less as individual portraits than as bearers of knowledge, ancestry, and communal survival. Nine Black female figures gather in a shallow, luminous landscape that feels part earth, part water, part sky. They wear long patterned robes in warm browns, golds, reds, and greens, with several white headwraps rising like halos or crowns. Some hold or present woven cloth while others bend, turn, or lift their arms in gestures that feel ceremonial and communal rather than simply narrative. Birds glide overhead, stars and geometric orbs float around them, and the surface is threaded with circular, diamond, and textile-like motifs. Their bodies are elongated and graceful, their faces calm and masklike, and the entire composition moves in a wide arc, as though the women are weaving not only fabric but rhythm, memory, and shared presence. No men appear. The painting centers women as a collective force: dignified, watchful, spiritually grounded, and deeply connected to one another. Biggers’s travels in West Africa reshaped his visual language, and this painting reflects that turn toward African design systems and sacred structure. The title adds another layer: “Band of Angels” suggests protection, song, or spiritual company, while “the Seventh Word” likely evokes a final sacred utterance, though its exact meaning remains unclear to me. That uncertainty gives the work part of its power. It feels like a vision of women weaving together the earthly and the divine, making culture into a living, sheltering act.

“Band of Angels: Weaving the Seventh Word” by John Biggers (American) - Oil & acrylic on canvas / 1992–1993 - Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art (Hartford, Connecticut) #WomenInArt #JohnBiggers #Biggers #art #ArtText #WadsworthAtheneum #TheWadsworth #AfricanAmericanArt #BlackArt #AfricanAmericanArtist

Two women are posed closely beneath a fruiting branch in an aristocratic garden setting. At left, a pale-skinned seated woman wears a wide straw hat trimmed with flowers, pearl earrings, and a warm brown satin gown with white lace sleeves and light blue ribbon bows down the bodice. She gathers oranges and red berries into a white apron lifted across her lap. Her posture is upright yet relaxed, and she looks off to her left. At right, a brown-skinned woman stands slightly behind and above her, wearing a black dress with white lace trim, layered necklaces, earrings, and a jeweled headpiece with feathers. She raises one arm to pluck an orange while her other hand rests on the seated woman’s shoulder. Their touching hands, shared fruit, and overlapping bodies create a strong sense of connection and mutual presence. The painting’s power is in that intimacy. The composition has long been read through hierarchical labels, but visually the two sitters are linked by gesture, ornament, and scale. The standing woman meets our gaze with striking steadiness and occupies the upper right of the composition with authority. The fruit-gathering motif can suggest pastoral leisure, abundance, and cultivated refinement, yet it also stages a social relationship. The Wadsworth notes that another version (in Belgium) was later altered to erase the woman of African descent, making this canvas especially important as evidence of Black presence within 18th-century British elite portraiture and as a reminder of how art history has been edited, renamed, and reinterpreted over time. Stephen Slaughter was an English portrait painter associated with elite patrons in Britain and Ireland, later serving as Surveyor and Keeper of the King’s Pictures under George II. Slaughter’s careful handling of satin, lace, pearls, and skin tones supports a composition whose historical significance extends to now as a rare and compelling image of closeness, status, and Black visibility in Georgian Britain.

"Portrait of Two Women" by Stephen Slaughter (English) - Oil on canvas / c. 1750 - Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art (Hartford, Connecticut) #WomenInArt #art #artText #BlueskyArt #portrait #StephenSlaughter #Slaughter #1700s #WadsworthAtheneum #TheWadsworth #BritishArt #PortraitOfWomen #EnglishArtist

A mannequin posed mid dance perhaps in a many layered silk and tulle strapless gown in shades of grey and blue with a swag of fabric below the waist and a long full skirt

A photograph of Hound Tor on Dartmoor with green grass in the foreground, the rocks on the horizon and full sunshine in blue sky. There is also a naughty daschund on a lead

No your eyes do not deceive you, that is indeed the sunshine in a pale, clear sky. Unsuitable Dog Walk Attire might see me gambolling in a spring grey blue Charles James ‘Swan’ dress from the #1950s with matching welly boots #TheWadsworth #FashionHistory 🗃️🪡

A close up photograph of an early 1850s silk gown. The fabric is bright blue with black swirling patterns. It has a pointed waist and a pleated skirt, covered with a black lace shawl

The blue practically glows against the swirls of black, blurred with the addition of the black lace shawl. This is another long standing favourite, a c1850 gown of striking shade and pattern, busting the myth of dull Victorians #thewadsworth #FashionHistory 🗃️🪡

#cuadrodeldía El abanico, 1875 (James J. Tissot 1836-1902) #TheWadsworth Harford #art Francés adscrito a la corriente neoclásica victoriana. Las mujeres bellamente vestidas eran centro de atención de su obra. Esta modelo, retratada habitual, puede ser su amante Kathleen Newton #FelizJueves

#cuadrodeldía La bandera en su ventana, 1918 (Childe Hassam 1859-1935) #TheWadsworth Hartford #art Impresionista bostoniano de obra luminosa, colores suaves y difusos y pincelada libre. La joven contempla un desfile de soldados tras el fin de la I GM. Su mano izq. transmite emoción #FelizSábado

“He who does Christ’s work must stay with Christ always.” Fra Giovanni da Fiesole

c.1395 ✨ 18 February 1455

#FeastDay #FraAngelico #BeatoAngelico #Dominican #PatronSaintOfArtists

🎨 Head of an Angel c.1445-59, Wadsworth Athaneum, Hartford, CT #TheWadsworth