A closer look
High society in the 19th century was just a thinly veiled racism carnival. Sarah Baartman, a Khoikhoi woman from South Africa, was lured to Europe under false pretenses and exhibited in 'freak shows' in London and Paris. Aristocrats literally paid money to poke her with sticks and gawk at her large buttocks, a feature common to her ethnic group but wildly fetishized by Europeans. Even after her tragic death in poverty, her body was dissected and displayed in a Paris museum until 1974.
