Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s ‘Black countess’ identified

Abstract

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s 1881 painting The Black Countess portrays a Black woman speeding along the coast of Nice. For more than a century, her identity remained unknown. By cross-referencing newspaper reports against municipal archives, I identify her here as Anne Justine Angèle Delva de Dalmarie, a Haitian-born aristocrat who became a minor celebrity in the French press.