A17th-century painting showing a Black woman with her White companion has been placed under a temporary export bar to reduce the risk of the artwork leaving the United Kingdom... ...Titled "Allegorical Painting of Two Ladies, English School," the painting presents a Black female sitter and her White companion as counterparts, as they sport similar clothing, hair, jewelry and makeup.... ..."This anonymous painting is a great rarity in British art, as a mid-seventeenth-century work that depicts a black woman and a white woman with equal status. It is not a portrait of real people, as far as we know, but the...