View of the City of Olinda, in Brazil, in Ruins (Primary Title)
View of Olinda with Ruins of the Jesuit Church (Former Title)
Frans Post, Dutch, 1612 - 1680 (Artist)
In the early 1630s, the small Portuguese colony of
Olinda in Brazil was conquered by the Dutch, and its
sites of Catholic worship were ransacked by Protestant
soldiers. In 1636, Dutch governor Prince John Maurice
of Nassau (1604–1679) was assigned to consolidate
Dutch rule of the territory. Frans Post accompanied
him to the Americas, staying eight years in Brazil,
where he made an extensive study of its diverse wildlife
and tropical plants and vistas. In 1654, the Portuguese
succeeded in taking back Olinda from the Netherlands.
Although Post completed this painting in 1666, it
captures the artist’s initial impressions of this region
of Brazil. The animals and landscape are lovingly and
idyllically rendered with a lush palette. Nevertheless,
Post does not shy away from the harmful consequences
of territorial conflict and colonization. The ruins of
a devastated Catholic church occupy a large portion
of the canvas, and the action of the scene centers on
a group of enslaved Africans transporting both goods
and the wife of a European enslaver in a hammock
while her husband oversees their labor.
The Jordan and Thomas A. Saunders III Collection
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