Sarah Baartman

Khoikhoi woman

Fame58.0
Momentum0.6
South Africa rank#73

Source-basedStable

Fame58.0
Momentum0.6
South Africa rank#73
Actors rank#43
Wikipedia58.4K

Lived 1789–1815, aged 26South Africa

South Africa ActorsTV Personality

Wikipedia
32 languages
Cross-language footprint
Rank in South Africa
#73
Actors
Era
1789–1815
Aged 26

Summary

Updated 2026-06-21

A Khoikhoi woman taken from southwestern Africa and displayed across 19th-century Europe under the name "Hottentot Venus" — exhibited for her body, reduced to a curiosity, then a specimen. Her story became the shorthand for colonial exploitation at its most dehumanizing.

Biography

About

Born around 1789, Sarah Baartman was a Khoikhoi woman from what is now South Africa. She was brought to Europe and exhibited in freak shows, her steatopygic body type — uncommon in Northwestern Europe — presented as spectacle and subjected to both prurient fascination and scientific scrutiny. The name "Hottentot Venus" fused a Dutch colonial slur with the Roman goddess of love, packaging her as entertainment and erotic projection. She died in Paris on 29 December 1815. At least one other woman was later displayed under the same name, extending the practice that made Baartman's experience synon…

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