Frans Post, Dutch, 1612-1680
Title: Brazilian Landscape
Date: 1660s
Medium: Oil on wood panel
Dimensions:
48.3 x 62.2 cm
Signed: lower right: F. Post
Credit Line: Presented, Captain R. Langton Douglas, 1923
Object Number: NGI.847
DescriptionThis painting shows a sugar plantation with a group of slaves fuelling the wood-fired boilers of a furnace house on the right. Others put out the cane on the drying platform in front of an unidentified building. The foreground includes a papaya tree next to macaúba and coco palms, in addition to an alligator, armadillos, anteaters and a monkey.
Frans Post, the younger brother of the painter and architect Pieter Post, accompanied an expedition in 1637 of Prince John Maurice to Brazil, a Dutch colony at the time. Post was part of a group of artists and scientists employed to record various aspects of South-American life, fauna and flora. The artist returned to the Netherlands in 1644 and took up residence in Haarlem, where he spent the rest of his career painting views of Brazil. Portrayed in a precise manner, without tonal perspective, his landscapes possess a sense of immediacy and a naïve quality. In this respect, he was influenced by his brother’s work and that of Cornelis Vroom. Post’s later views of Brazil are more decorative in character.
March 2016
Frans Post, the younger brother of the painter and architect Pieter Post, accompanied an expedition in 1637 of Prince John Maurice to Brazil, a Dutch colony at the time. Post was part of a group of artists and scientists employed to record various aspects of South-American life, fauna and flora. The artist returned to the Netherlands in 1644 and took up residence in Haarlem, where he spent the rest of his career painting views of Brazil. Portrayed in a precise manner, without tonal perspective, his landscapes possess a sense of immediacy and a naïve quality. In this respect, he was influenced by his brother’s work and that of Cornelis Vroom. Post’s later views of Brazil are more decorative in character.
March 2016
Exhibition HistoryDutch Pictures, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1952-1953
Centenary Exhibition, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, October - December 1964
Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Ireland, National Gallery, London, 1985
Frans Post (1612-1680): Maler des Verlorenen Paradieses, Haus der Kunst, München, 2 June - 17 September 2006
Art Surpassing Nature: Dutch Landscapes in the Age of Rembrandt and Ruisdael, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 29 October 2012 - 20 January 2013
Centenary Exhibition, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, October - December 1964
Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Ireland, National Gallery, London, 1985
Frans Post (1612-1680): Maler des Verlorenen Paradieses, Haus der Kunst, München, 2 June - 17 September 2006
Art Surpassing Nature: Dutch Landscapes in the Age of Rembrandt and Ruisdael, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 29 October 2012 - 20 January 2013
Label TextFrans Post accompanied an expedition of Prince John Maurice to Brazil, then a Dutch colony, in 1637. He was part of a group of artists and scientists employed to record various aspects of South American life, fauna and flora. The artist returned to the Netherlands in 1644 and took up residence in Haarlem, where he spent the rest of his career painting views of Brazil. This painting depicts a furnace house on a sugar plantation where a number of slaves fuel the wood-?red boilers. The foreground includes a papaya tree next to macaúba and coco palms, in addition to an alligator, armadillos, anteaters and a monkey.