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Village of Olinda, Brazil

Village of Olinda, Brazil

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Frans Jansz. Post

This painting represents the region of Olinda, Brazil, a historic center of sugarcane production. In 1636, the artist Frans Post traveled to the Dutch colony in northeast Brazil in the entourage of the governor Count Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen. While there, he documented the people, plants, animals, and sugar production that informed his drawings and paintings of Brazil. When Europeans colonized the Americas they immediately began building infrastructure to cultivate and extract natural resources for profit. They built large-scale plantations throughout the Americas to grow and prepare crops for export including sugarcane, tobacco, and rice. Colonizers enslaved, transported, and forced Africans to labor on these plantations. Post did not represent the violence of slavery or the dangers of sugarcane production. Here, he depicts enslaved Africans socializing rather than laboring. Early paintings of the Americas, like this one, elided the subjugation of non-European peoples with that of the American wilderness and celebrated both.
Artist
Frans Jansz. Post
(Dutch, ca. 1612 - 1680)
Title
Village of Olinda, Brazil
Date
ca. 1660
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
32 1/2 x 51 1/2 in. Overall
Credit
Gift of Charles R. Crane
Accession No.
13.1.16
Classification
Paintings
Geography
Netherlands

Related

between November 1911 and August 1912, purchased in Germany by Paul S. Reinsch (Madison, WI); 1912, sold to Charles R. Crane (Chicago, IL); 1913, gifted to the University of Wisconsin-Madison; 1967, transferred to the Elvehjem Art Center [now called Chazen Museum of Art]

  • Blacksberg, Leslie Ann. "In Context: 'Village of Olinda, Brazil' by Frans Post." Elvehjem Museum of Art Bulletin/Biennial Report 1995-1997. Elvehjem Museum of Art (1998). p. 83, no. 1
  • Levy, Carlos Roberto and Anton Rajer. "Frans Post's Village of Olinda: A Tropical Landscape of Dutch Colonial Brazil." Elvehjem Museum of Art Bulletin, 1995-1997. Elvehjem Museum of Art (1997): 71-82. pp. 71-82
  • Rogers, Millard F., Jr. "Paintings at the Elvehjem Art Center, University of Wisconsin." The Magazine Antiques. Vol. CVIII, No. 6, December (1975). pp. 1147, 1150, fig. 2
  • Corrêa do Lago, Pedro and Bia. "Frans Post (1612-1680): Catalogue raisonné." Milan: 5 Continents Editions, 2007. p. 251, no. 86
  • Elvehjem Museum of Art. "Handbook of the Collection." Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Madison, 1990. no. 40
  • Elvehjem Museum of Art. "Bulletin/Biennial Report 1995-1997." Madison: Elvehjem Museum of Art, 1998. pp. 71, 83
  • Madison Art Association. "Collection of Paintings Owned by Paul S. Reinsch: Exhibition in the State Historical Library Building." Madison, WI: Madison Art Association, 1912. p. 5, no. 30

  • Resource & Ruin: Wisconsin’s Enduring Landscape: Chazen Museum of Art, 12/19/2022–3/26/2023
  • Frans Post's Village of Olinda, Brazil (1660): Elvehjem Museum of Art, 4/1/1998–5/31/1998
  • Age of the Marvelous, The: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 9/21/1991–1/3/1993
  • Collection of Paintings Owned by Paul S. Reinsch: The Madison Art Association, 9/26/1912–10/24/1912

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