The Qatar Museums Authority (QMA) and the National Portrait Gallery in London have announced a co-operative agreement whereby a rare 18th century portrait of a black African Muslim went on display last week at the gallery, to which it has been lent for five years.
The portrait of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, painted by William Hoare of Bath in 1733, was bought by QMA at a Christie’s auction in December 2009 for a little over half a million pounds. It had previously been in a private collection. Following the purchase the painting was the subject of export restriction, having been judged to be of outstanding importance to Britain’s history and culture.
In addition to lending the painting to the National Portrait Gallery, the QMA will support a programme which includes conservation of the painting, research and interpretation, a UK tour to include Leicester, Liverpool and the North-East, and an exhibition to visit Doha in 2013. As part of the programme an intern from Qatar will spend time working at the National Portrait Gallery.
Roger Mandle, Executive Director of QMA, said: “I am delighted that we now are able to share such an important painting with audiences in Britain. Working with the National Portrait Gallery will allow the cultural, historical and religious significance of this portrait to be fully researched. This material can then be shared on an international basis.”
Sandy Nairne, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, said: “This is a good example of international co-operation between museums, which will extend the opportunities for people to understand the importance of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo. It is a portrait that sheds new light on cultural and intellectual exchanges in the first half of the 18th century.”
For many years the portrait was thought lost, as its existence was known only from a description in the memoirs of the English benefactor who rescued Diallo from slavery in America and brought him to Britain. Born into a powerful family of Muslim clerics in Bondu, now part of Gambia, Diallo was captured by slave-traders in 1730 and shipped to America. After he was taken to Britain he was recognised as an aristocrat and a man of great intelligence and learning, treated as a celebrity and was introduced at the court of King George II. The portrait was commissioned by a group of Diallo’s friends and supporters, to remember him before he returned to Gambia in 1734.
Diallo is portrayed proudly wearing his national dress, and with a copy of the Holy Qu’ran suspended from a cord around his neck. This was one of three copies of the Qur’an which he astonished his British friends by writing out entirely from memory.
The portrait shows him to be a man of dignity and pride as well as intelligence, and is thought to be the only 18th century portrait not showing a black person in some form of servitude. BBC broadcaster Zeinab Badawi, who is a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery, said: “It is striking and important because Diallo is clearly a free, educated and well-heeled individual which makes a strong contrast to the common depictions at this time of Africans in servitude. Diallo is featured wearing a Qur’an around his neck, thereby reminding us that Muslims have been in Britain for many centuries.” | 
