Alma Holsteinson

Pierre Louis Alexandre (1844–1905) was born in French Guyana and arrived in Stockholm in 1863, likely as a stowaway on an American cargo ship. He supported himself as a dockworker and, during the winter months, as a model for Swedish painters at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm. Here he crossed roads with the young female artist Alma Holsteinson, one of many students who made studies after Pierre Louis Alexandre.

Holsteinson was enrolled at the Academy from 1878 to 1884. She worked in oil and pastel crayon and participated with portraits in exhibitions from 1876 and onwards. Her fellow student at the Academy, Karin Bergöö (later married to the artist Carl Larsson) has painted a portrait of Pierre Louis Alexandre that holds many similarities to the painting in this auction. The two portraits were most likely executed around 1880 during the same sitting at the Academy. In 2024 The National Museum of Art in Washington announced that it had acquired the Portrait of Pierre Louis Alexandre by Karin Bergöö Larsson.

The scholar Monica L. Miller, associate professor of English and Africana Studies at Barnard College, has commented on the acquisition of Bergöö's portrait by the National Gallery of Art:

"Alexandre is thought to be the most depicted Black sitter in pre-20th century European art. [...] This portrait of Alexandre is unique and important not only because it depicts him as a person and not merely a model, but also because it forms part of the beginning of a record of Black lives in a globalized African diaspora, even in a place as unexpected as Sweden. As such, ‘Black presence’ becomes historical connection and begins the process of reckoning.”

The practise of exoticising a Black model was almost a rule in contemporary art of the time. Pierre Louis Alexandre has often been portrayed wearing a variety of headgear, sometimes a fez, and at times armed with a curved sword and wearing a turban as a guard in the sultan's harem. Yet the model's identity was not of interest. In the imagination of the viewer, he quickly became associated with the African continent, a part of the world he likely never even visited.

In Alma Holsteinson's portrait, Pierre Louis Alexandre wears a plain shirt along with striped trousers that reflects his reality as a dockworker. Her powerful portrait is more than an orientalized depiction - she skillfully portrays the model as a strong and mindful individual thoughtfully gazing beyond his beholders.

Picture: Registration card for Pierre Louis Alexandre from the Catholic Church Registry, Stockholm.