George Marcgraf, a naturalist who was also part of the entourage, arrived in Recife only the following year, and like some of the soldiers who served the WIC in Pernambuco, also contributed to Nassau’s project. The work of these men brought to Brazil by Nassau bore fruit in maps, books, oil paintings, engravings, and a mass of scientific knowledge about the tropics that became the first uniform set of geographical, botanical, zoological, and ethnic information about America that merited some credibility in Early Modern Europe, despite its commercial motivations.įRANS POST - O PRIMEIRO EUROPEU QUE RETRATOU O BRASILīesides Frans Jansz Post, the painter Albert Eckhout and the scientist Willem Piso also came to Brazil in 1637, to join the cartographer Zacharias Wagener. What Brazil experienced in the first half of the 17th century with the Nassau court had no parallel in any other stop in the Americas.Īrtists and scientists were brought to the muddy and shabby streets of a port far from the Brazilian coast by the simple whim of an illustrious nobleman who wanted to show local investors the viability of such a risky undertaking and also, according to the spirit of the time, bring civilization to those still practically unknown lands. The Nassau entourage (Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen) and their views on Brazil. If the first years required a strong hand and the main objective was to expand the area under the domain of the West-Indian Compagnie (WIC), from 1637 on, the scene changed with the government of Count Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen: cartographers, painters, engravers, physicians, botanists, and other professionals arrived with his entourage, with the express mission of registering the New World that promised so much wealth to Dutch investors.

“Accuratissima Brasiliae Tabula”, Hondius/Jansson French text on the back, published between 1652-58. The decorative title card is flanked by a native family, and the seas are adorned with sailboats, a sea monster, and a compass rose. The hereditary captaincies established by the Portuguese are dotted along the coast. Instead, the region is filled with dramatic scenes of the indigenous people, including warfare and cannibalism, and some curious wild animals. The interior is devoid of geographical information, except for largely imaginary rivers and forests. The map is inserted with two regions of Dutch interest in the area Baja de Todos los Sanctos and Pernambuco. Map of Brazil from 1652 – Magnificent representation of Brazil with the north oriented to the right by a beautiful compass rose. The Dutch settled in the city of Recife, and after unsuccessful attempts to occupy the Portuguese administrative headquarters in Bahia, they preferred to go straight to the source of Brazilian wealth: the Captaincy of Pernambuco and its sugar. However, it was only after the Dutch invasion invasion in Northeast Brazil, between 16, that European artists with solid technical training, still built along the lines of the medieval guilds, began to paint the American tropics in loco. South America, from the 16th century on, was interpreted by the conquistadors not only through words, but also through images. Inland – Cabaceiras, Ingá, Areia, Sousa and Araruna.History and Architecture of São Luís do Maranhão.

Dutch portrait painter frans