In 1760, a child of approximately 10 years old arrived at the Swedish royal court as a “gift” for the queen. Born into slavery between St. Croix (now part of the U.S. Virgin Islands) between 1747 and 1750, the boy, Adolf Ludvig Gustav Fredrik Albrecht Couschi, would eventually be known as Badin—a name derived from the French word for a joker or prankster.
While his arrival was framed as a gesture of royal favor, Badin’s life evolved into a complex study of survival and status. Over the decades, he ascended to roles that spanned the administrative and the artistic, serving as a court secretary, chamberlain, civil servant, and ballet master. Yet, despite his proximity to power, he occupied a precarious “in-between” space: a free man within the court who remained an outsider to the royal family.
A landmark Swedish exhibition explores life of 18th-century Black diarist at the National Museum in Stockholm, seeking to dismantle the caricature of the “court joker” and replace it with the documented reality of a sophisticated intellectual. Titled Badin – Beyond Surface and Mask, the exhibition brings together his personal writings for the first time, offering a rare glimpse into the psyche of one of the few people of African origin in Sweden during the 18th and 19th centuries.
A Life of Masks and Manuscripts
Badin’s trajectory from the Danish colony of St. Croix to the halls of Stockholm was marked by a series of transfers. He was originally owned by Christian Lebrecht von Pröck, who brought him to Denmark, before he was received by Gustaf de Brunck, a Swedish councillor of commerce, who eventually “donated” him to Queen Louisa Ulrika.
Under the Queen’s care, Badin was raised according to the progressive ideals of philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who advocated for independent thought and free development in children. This unconventional upbringing provided Badin with a Christian education and the ability to write—skills that were remarkably rare for someone of his background at the time. These tools allowed him to cultivate a private intellectual life that stood in stark contrast to his public persona.
When Badin passed away, he left behind a legacy of self-documentation: diaries, an autobiography, private letters, and an extensive book collection. These documents reveal a man who was not merely a decorative presence at court, but a witness to the political and social shifts of his era.
The Struggle Between Image and Voice
Despite the richness of his archives, Badin has remained largely overlooked or misrepresented in Swedish public consciousness. He has appeared in various fictionalized forms, most notably in a racist depiction within August Strindberg’s 1902 play Gustav III. More recently, he was featured in the ballet Gustavia at the Royal Swedish Opera.
For African-Swedish artist Salad Hilowle, this gap between the “image” of Badin and his actual “voice” became the driving force of his work. Hilowle, who has dedicated a significant portion of his career to Badin’s history, was commissioned to create a film for the National Museum exhibition titled Maroonen (The Marooned).
The film imagines Badin delivering a lecture to contemporary students at Uppsala University, reflecting on his life and the ways he has been portrayed over the centuries. Hilowle utilizes opera to emphasize the emotional weight of Badin’s words; in one sequence, an opera singer walks through the museum singing the phrase, “I as one of the Blacks,” a line taken directly from Badin’s Swedish writings.
“I’m always talking about how he [Badin] was an image and he was the other and now the other is also an artist,” Hilowle said. He suggests that the “joker” persona was a strategic mask—a way for Badin to hide his education and intellectual depth to avoid being perceived as a threat to those around him. By playing the trickster, he survived; by writing his diary, he ensured his true self would eventually be known.
The Rarity of the Record
Badin’s story is a significant outlier in the historical record of Sweden. According to population records, only about 20 people of African origin lived in Sweden between the early 18th and early 19th centuries. Because very few records exist for these individuals, the lived experiences of most are lost to time.
Åsa Bharathi Larsson, the exhibition’s curator and an art and media historian at Södertörn University, notes that while Badin is a vital exception, his life was not representative of all Black people in Sweden due to his unique status. “He is free but he isn’t part of the royal family,” Larsson said. “We don’t understand anything about his real family, but he has a status and a different relationship with the royal family than perhaps other court servants had.”
The exhibition aims to highlight the “tenderness” and fragility of Badin, moving beyond the strength or servitude often associated with the Black subject in Swedish cultural history. Through the combination of original manuscripts and Hilowle’s cinematic interpretation, the museum seeks to restore dignity to a man who spent his life shapeshifting to survive.
As the National Museum continues to showcase Beyond Surface and Mask, Hilowle plans to continue his exploration of Badin’s life with a third film. The ongoing project seeks to answer the enduring questions of grief and survival that permeate Badin’s diaries, ensuring that the man who “wrote himself into history” is finally read on his own terms.
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