A Village in Brazil

Frans Post (Haarlem 1612 – Haarlem 1680). Oil painting on panel, A Village in Brazil, by Frans Post (Haarlem 1612 – Haarlem 1680), signed, lower right, in same shade of green as surrounding foliage: F. POST, circa 1670-1680. A view of a Brazilian village in the middle ground, with a palm tree and rustic churches on the left beneath a palm tree, and houses in the centre and on the right; a wide, flattish landscape under a blue sky with clouds beyond; a pineapple in the foreground, left, and two figures on a path in the centre foreground, with others gathered in and around the church porch beyond. From 1637 to 1644 Post travelled to Brazil and the West-Indies in the retinue of Count Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen, who had been sent by the Dutch West India Company to colonise north-east Brazil. Post was probably the first European to paint landscapes of the New World. Ham House, Surrey (Accredited Museum)