Jeanne Duval was born in Haiti in 1820. She was of mixed-race heritage including black African and mixed French ancestry.
In 1842, Duval traveled to France where she met the French poet Charles Baudelaire. She would become his lover and serve as his muse for the next twenty years.
Many of Baudelaire's poems are about Duval or dedicated to her including the Black Venus cycle of poems in Les Fleurs du Mal.
Edouard Manet painted a portrait of Duval in 1862 called Baudelaire's Mistress, Reclining. She died sometime thereafter possibly of syphillis: historical records are unclear.
Writer Angela Carter presents Duval with agency in her short story, Black Venus.
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Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by writer Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks involved in the Mixed experience. Please look for more profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog! Thanks for reading. And check out some of the previous year's profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011.
