Agostino Brunias

Agostino Brunias was an Italian painter whose career shifted from classical decorative work in England to influential depictions of West Indian life in the late 18th century.

After painting murals and classical scenes for Robert Adam’s stately home interiors, including works now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, he left London in 1764 to accompany Sir William Young to the British West Indies.

There, based primarily in Dominica, he produced detailed paintings and sketches of Carib communities, mixed-race families, market scenes, and emerging Creole cultures across Dominica, Saint Vincent, Grenada, Tobago, and Barbados—images later turned into popular engravings such as “Barbados Mulatto Girl.”