Brazilian Landscape with a House under Construction

Johan Maurits took artists and scientists with him to Brazil. One of them was Frans Post, who recorded the landscape. But when Post made this panel, he had already been back in the Netherlands for some time.

Post painted Brazil with a European eye, for European collectors. As a result his landscapes provide an idealised image of the plantation colony and show nothing of the harsh reality of slavery. In Post’s painting, European colonists live harmoniously alongside the indigenous Brazilians (here presumably the Potiguara) and enslaved Africans.