To reimagine an African Queen (2026)
A third of net profits will be donated to the National Portrait Gallery
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A third of net profits will be donated to the National Portrait Gallery
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To reimagine an African Queen (2026) responds to an 18th-century portrait of physician and natural historian Hans Sloane by Stephen Slaughter which is on display in the National Portrait Gallery. Sloane travelled to Jamaica in 1687 and, while he was there, he was treated on by an African woman ‘(who had been a queen in her own country)’ who removed a tumour from his toe and filled the space with burnt tobacco ashes.
In contrast to Sloane’s portrait, where he holds a scroll showing the lacebark plant, Watkiss’s African queen holds the plant herself, reclaiming the Indigenous and African knowledge — including that of the Taíno — that underpinned his work and fed into western medicine.
Seated regally and surrounded by medicinal plants and symbols of resistance, she is accompanied by an Osanyin staff, which belongs to the herbalist in Yoruba culture, and wears a gold necklace of the Sankofa bird, a West African symbol that encourages reflection on the past in order to build a better future.
This limited edition lithograph has 15 screenprinted colour overlays with hand-applied coloured-pencil and 24 carat gold leaf embelishments. This is a special fundraiser with a third of net profits being donated to the National Portrait Gallery.
Charmaine Watkiss (b. 1964, London) is a British artist known for her works exploring the botanical legacy of the Caribbean and tracing the lineage to Africa. Informed by detailed archival research, she reimagines the women through whom such knowledge of plants and their properties has been handed down, using her own likeness to tell these collectively experienced ‘memory stories’.
Watkiss has exhibited internationally and her work is held in private and public collections across the UK and the US including The British Museum; The Wellcome Collection; The Government Art Collection; Cartwright Hall Museum, Abbott Hall Museum; The Holburne Museum, The Lincoln Museum, The Lincoln and Nasher Museum and the Katrin Bellinger collection.