Rijksmuseum

Landscape in Brazil

Date

1652

Medium

canvas, oil paint (paint)

Institution

Rijksmuseum

The Dutch West India Company seized the lucrative sugar industry from the Portuguese. Sugar cane was cultivated on plantations like the one depicted in this painting. A sugar mill can be seen in the centre, under the canopy. Violence was used to force people in slavery to do the work. What is portrayed as an idyll for the Dutch viewers was a gruesome reality for them.

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