Black Musketeer: A Swashbuckling Tale of Race and Revenge

The Object

The man behind "The Three Musketeers" and "The Count of Monte Cristo" was one of the richest, most popular authors in the world—an adventurous celebrity who could fight as well as write. But many of Alexandre Dumas’ readers today don’t know that he was Black—or that his best story may have been his own. A portrait of Alexandre Dumas, widely reproduced in his day, was recently acquired by the Minneapolis Institute of Art: https://collections.artsmia.org/art/142671/portrait-of-alexandre-dumas-pere-pierre-francois-eugene-giraud Another portrait of Dumas in Mia’s collection—younger, dashing, looking a little like Prince: https://collections.artsmia.org/art/54426/portrait-of-alexander-dumas-achille-deveria