Brazilian Scene

Location

Country: Netherlands
City: The Hague
Place: British Embassy

This and another work by Post acquired at the same time (GAC 0/61) were mentioned in ‘A Postscript’, published in ‘The Burlington Magazine’ in 1943 by J. de Sousa-Leao. (His main article, ‘Post in Brazil’, had been reproduced in the magazine the previous year.) Sousa-Leao described the works as:

‘…representing typical landscapes as Post painted time and again until the end of his days, descriptive of life in the sugar plantations.’

The works were purchased for the Government Art Collection from the Duke of Buccleuch and Sousa-Leao speculates on their earlier provenance:

‘These presumably came to the Buccleuch collection through the Duke of Montagu, who was Ambassador to the French Court at the end of the seventeenth century. It would not be surprising, therefore, if the two pictures had come from the Louis XIV collection. Only eight of the series are to-day catalogued in the Louvre. Already in Louis XIV’s reign not more than twenty-nine were hung at Chaville, according to a quotation by M. Benisovich…, twenty-three of which are of similar sizes to the Duke of Buccleuch’s paintings. On the other hand, Post may have been in England, after his return from Brazil. There was a view of Windsor Castle painted by him at the Palace of Honsholredik, according to a catalogue of 1764 in the Dutch Royal Archives.’

Frans Jansz Post was born in Haarlem; the son of Jan Post, a glass-stainer of some celebrity, who died while he was still young. In 1636 John Maurice of Nassau, who was appointed Governor General of Brazil, took Post with him as one of a group of painters, cartographers and navigators to the West Indies and South America. Post stayed there until the Count returned to Holland in 1644, when he settled in Haarlem. During his eight years in Brazil, Post made numerous drawings of the most interesting views. On his return to Holland he painted several large pictures from these sketches, including those for the palace of Ryksdorp, near Wassenaer. Post died in Haarlem, where he was buried on 16 February 1680.

Places

Brazil

Subjects

dance, topography, landscape C17th, genre, tree, palm, river, Brazilian, man, woman, field, fence, house

Materials & Techniques

canvas, oil, oil painting

Artist

Frans Jansz Post (1612 - 1680)

Title

Brazilian Scene

Date

c.1665

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

height: 48.70 cm, width: 64.70 cm

Acquisition

Purchased fom the Duke of Buccleuch, December 1944

Inscription

bcl (very indistinct on mound): 166? / F. POST

Provenance

Collection of politician and Conservative peer Walter Scott, eighth Duke of Buccleuch, tenth Duke of Queensberry (1894-1973) at Boughton House, Northamptonshire; from whom purchased by the Ministry of Works in 1945

GAC number

0/62