About the Artwork
In 1637 Frans Post accompanied Johan Maurits, count of Nassau-Siegen, to the Dutch colony of Pernambuco in Brazil. The Impressions garnered during seven years in South America became the source for numerous compositions painted throughout the artist's life. This panoramic view, completed many years after Post's return to Holland, depicts a church built in a tropical clearing, perhaps the Jesuit church at Olinda, the former capital of Pernambuco. The artist contrasts the church and the colonial settlement in the background with the lush native flora and fauna that dominate the foreground. The otherwise peaceful atmosphere is interrupted by the image of a cobra eating a rabbit, perhaps a reminder that the New World could not totally be tamed.
View of the Jesuit Church at Olinda, Brazil
1665
Frans Jansz Post
ca. 1612-1680
Dutch
Unknown
Oil on canvas
Unframed: 22 1/8 × 32 7/8 inches (56.2 × 83.5 cm) Framed: 28 1/4 × 39 1/8 × 2 1/2 inches (71.8 × 99.4 × 6.4 cm)
Paintings
European Painting
Founders Society Purchase, General Membership Fund
34.188
This work is in the public domain.
Markings
Signed and dated, lower left: F. POST 1665
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Provenance
(Dr. Siegfried F. Aram, New York, New York, USA)
November 1934-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
For more information on provenance and its important function in the museum, please visit:
Provenance pageExhibition History
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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Smith, R.C., Jr. "The Brazilian Landscapes of Frans Post." Art Quarterly 1, no. 4 (1938): pp. 238-267 (fig 15). [as Visit to a Ruined Chapel.]
Smith, R.C., Jr. "The colonial churches of Brazil." Bulletin of the Pan American Union 72, no. 1 (1938): pp. 3, 6 (ill.).
Richardson, E.P., ed. Detroit Institute of Arts Catalogue of Paintings. London, 1944, p. 103, no. 682.
Sousa-Leao, J. de. Frans Post, Civilização Brazileira. São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, 1948, p. 100, no. 30, pl. XXXI.
Bazin, G. L'Architecture réligieuse baroque à Brésil, 2 vols., vol. 1, p. 55, note 2.
Guimaraes, A. "Na Holanda com Frans Post." Revista do Instituto Históico Geográfico Brasileiro 235 (1957): p. 185 ff., no. 104.
Larson, E. Frans Post, interprète du Brésil. Amsterdam and Rio de Janeiro, 1962, pp. 109, 197, no. 83, pl. 67.
The Painter and the New World. Exh. cat., Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Montreal, 1967, cat. 9.
Sousa-Leão, J. de. Frans Post 1612-1680. Amsterdam and New York, 1973, p. 89, no. 48 (ill.). [as Church With Portico--as the Church of the Jesuits in Olinda.]
The European Vision of America. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, et al. Washington, DC, 1975, cat. 80 (ill.).
Haarlem: the Seventeenth Century. Exh. cat., Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University. Exh. cat., New Brunswick, 1983, pp. 117-119, cat. 100 (ill.).
Larson, E. "Frans Post, An important new Brazilian landscape." Tableau 10, no. 4 (1988): p. 58.
Whitehead, P.J. and M. Boeseman. A portrait of Dutch 17th century Brazil. Amsterdam, Oxford, and New York, 1989, pp. 187-189.
Jesuit Art in North American Collections. Exh. cat., Patrick and Beatrice Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University. Milwaukee, 1991, p. 42, cat. 8 (ill.).
The Age of the Marvelous. Exh. cat., Hood Museum of Art. Hanover, 1991, pp. 120-121, cat. 120 (ill.).
Lynn, R. Brazil and the U.S.A.: What Do We Have in Common? Brazilian Embassy Cultural Section. Washington, D.C., 1997 , p. 7 (ill.).
Wissman, F.W. European Vistas: Cultural Landscapes. Detroit, 2000, p. 52 (ill.).
Masters of Dutch Painting: The Detroit Institute of Arts. London, 2004, pp. 168-169.
Keyes, G.S. "A Brief History of the European Paintings Collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts with a Focus on the Dutch School." in the catalogue for The European Fine Arts Fair (TEFAF). Maastricht, 2005, pp. 10-15.
Time and Transformation in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art. Exh. cat., Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College. Poughkeepsie, 2005, p. 248, fig. 152, cited under cat. 71.
Correa do Lago, P. and B. Frans Post [1612-1680] Catalogue Raisonné. Brazil and Italy, 2007, pp. 254-255, cat. 89 (ill.).
Schmidt, Benjamin. “The ‘Dutch’ ‘Atlantic’ and the Dubious Case of Frans Post.” In Dutch Atlantic Connections, 1680-1800: Linking Empires, Bridging Borders. Edited by Gert Oostindie and Jessica Roitmann (Atlantic World: Europe, Africa and the Americas, 1500-1830, vol. 29). Leiden, 2014, pp. 262–264.
You, Yao-Fen. “From Novelty to Necessity: The Europeanization of Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate.” In Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate: Consuming the World, ed. Yao-Fen You, Mimi Hellman, and Hope Saska. Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 2016, p. 50; 59 (ill.); 132, cat. 62.
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Credit Line for Reproduction
Frans Jansz Post, View of the Jesuit Church at Olinda, Brazil, 1665, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, General Membership Fund, 34.188.
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