Laura de Dianti, 1523The Venetian artist Titian portrays a young Italian woman with a gorgeous blue dress and an elaborate pearl and feather headdress, accompanied by a young black page with a gold earring. Both the African page and the headdress connect the portrait’s subject with the exotic, though slaves from Africa and the Ottoman Empire were actually common in wealthy Venetian households. (© Human Bios GmbH, Switzerland. Courtesy, Heinz Kisters Collection.)