Brasiliansk landskab med sukkerrørsplantage

Brasiliansk landskab med sukkerrørsplantage
(Landscape in Brazil with Sugar Plantation)
1660
Oil on canvas. 87x113 cm
Purchase 1763
Inv. no.: KMSsp491
Statens Museum for Kunst, Denmark

RIVERSIDE VILLAGE

RIVERSIDE VILLAGE
signer lower left: F. POST
oil on canvas
20 1/8 by 34 3/8 in.; 51 by 62 cm.

Sotheby's
Important Old Master Paintings & Sculpture
New York | 27 Jan 2011, 10:00 AM | N08712
LOT 149
PROPERTY FROM A FAMILY COLLECTION
FRANS JANSZ. POST
HAARLEM CIRCA 1612 - 1680

ESTIMATE 800,000-1,200,000 USD
Lot Sold: 962,500 USD

PROVENANCE
Emile Wolf, New York, 1967;
Thence by descent to present owners.

EXHIBITED
Montreal, Musée des Beaux-Arts, The Painter and the New World: a survey of painting from 1564 to 1867 marking the founding of Canadian Confederation, 9 June-30 July, 1967, no. 8;
Norfolk, Chrysler Museum; Providence, Rhode Island Shchool of Design; Tampa, The Tampa Museum, The discovery of the everyday : seventeenth century Dutch paintings from the Wolf Collection, September 1982-21 August 1983, no. 39.

LITERATURE
Columbia Lippincott Gazetter of the World, 1952, p. 1455;
The Painter and the New World: a survey of painting from 1564 to 1867 marking the founding of Canadian Confederation, exhibition catalogue, Montreal 1967, cat. no. 8, reproduced;
J. de Sousa-Leão, Frans Post-1612-1680, Amsterdam 1973, p. 122, cat. no. 100, reproduced;
The discovery of the everyday: seventeenth century Dutch paintings from the Wolf Collection, exhibition catalogue, Norfolk 1982, cat. no. 39, reproduced;
P. Corrêa do Lago and B. Corrêa do Lago , Frans Post: 1612-1680, Milan 2007, p. 315, cat. no. 134, reproduced.
CATALOGUE NOTE
Frans Post's career is a mystery prior to his historic voyage to Brazil as part of the retinue of Prince Johann Maurits of Nassau-Siegen, which set sail on 25 October 1636. Post was hired by the Dutch to depict their newly acquired territory, and in doing so became the first professional artist to bring back with him images of the New World. (1) There he stayed until 1644, and during his time in Brazil executed no less than eighteen canvases, only seven of which are known to have survived: four are in the Louvre, Paris, one in the Mauritshuis, The Hague, one in the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection, Caracas, and one in the Instituto Ricardo Brennand, Recife. All seven of these surviving works from Post's original journey are dated between 1637-1640. (2) Executed some twenty years after his return from Brazil, the present work belongs to what is considered the beginning of Post's final, or fourth, phase of painting. Thirty nine works have been identified as belonging to this moment in Post's career, which spanned the last decade of his life, none of which are dated, making a sound chronology of these later works exceedingly difficult. What is certain though, is that by this point in his career Post had become extremely sought after for his ability to depict scenes of the New World, and his newly wealthy Dutch clients sought compositions which could be associated with Holland's global reach and economic power. Furthermore, these scenes satisfied a growing taste for "exotic" pictures, thus making Post's views of natives and other tropical elements all the more desirable. What appears apparent from these later works is that Post was less concerned with  extremely accurate topographical recreations of Brazil, but rather more preoccupied with providing his clientele works which displayed a high level of exoticism.
Though datable to the beginning of his fourth phase, as evidenced by the format of the houses in the background on the left, this picture contains many of the intricate elements which are the hallmark of Post's finest works from the 1660's. The lush vegetation is rendered with highly refined, almost miniaturist detail, and the inclusion of numerous figures in the foreground is a component which is lacking from his very final works. Compositionally, the repoussoir device at right, which frames the landscape and leads the viewer's eye into the picture, is entirely typical of Post's capricci from his later output. In addition, the scene is arranged as if looking down from an elevated vantage point,
thus providing the viewer full visual access to not only the detailed foreground elements, but also the sweeping panorama beyond.
We are grateful Pedro and Bia Corrêa do Lago for their assistance in the cataloguing of this lot.
1. see Literature, Corrêa do Lago 2007, p. 31.
2. The entire group of original paintings from Post's journey were given by the Prince of Nassau to Louis XIV in 1679. They were exhibited in the Grande Galerie de Versailles and remained in the possession of the French until the mideighteenth century.

THE SUGAR MILL

THE SUGAR MILL
signed lower center F.POST
oil on panel
15 1/2 by 25 1/4 in.; 39.4 by 64.1 cm.

Sotheby's
Old Master Paintings, European Sculpture & Antiquities
New York | 04 Jun 2009, 02:00 PM | N08560

LOT 44
PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF LÚCIA MOREIRA SALLES
FRANS JANSZ. POST
HAARLEM CIRCA 1612 - 1680
ESTIMATE 300,000-500,000 USD
Lot Sold: 1,706,500 USD

PROVENANCE
With Bernard Houthakker, Amsterdam, 1933-35;
Private collection, Pernambuco, Brazil;
A.C. Cavalcanti, Rio de Janairo, 1937;
Dr. Caio de Lima Cavalcanti, Rio de Janairo, 1942;
Mário Pimenta Camargo, Sao Paulo, 1971;
Sale, London, Christie's, 11 December 1984, lot 67;
Walther Moreira Salles, New York, 1984;
Thence by inheritence to his wife, Lúcia Moreira Salles, New York.
EXHIBITED
Rio de Janeiro, Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, Frans Post, 1942, no. 16;
Sao Paulo, Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo, Frans Post (1612-1680). Obras de coleçoes paulistas, 1973.
LITERATURE
J. de Sousa-Leao, Frans Post. Seus quadros brasileiros, Rio de Janeiro, 1937, p. 25, fig. 24;
R.C. Smith, "The Brazilian Landscapes of Frans Post," in The Art Quarterly, 1, no. 4, Autumn 1938, p. 265, no. 33;
J. de Sousa-Leao, Frans Post, Rio de Janeiro 1948, p. 101, no. 69;
A. Guimaraes, "Na Holanda com Frans Post," in Revista do Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro, 335, 1957, p.
179f, no. 81;
E. Larsen, Frans Post: Interprète du Brésil, Amsterdam 1962, p.189, no. 27;
J. de Sousa-Leao, Frans Post: 1612-1618, Amsterdam 1973, p. 105, no. 70, reproduced p. 104;
P. Corrêa do Lago, Frans Post: 1612-1680, Milan 2007, p. 282, no. 107, reproduced in color.
CATALOGUE NOTE
The present painting depicts a Brazilian sugar mill and plantation house set in a lush tropical landscape. Paintings such as this by the Dutch artist Frans Post both satisfied and helped to feed the growing seventeenth century European curiosity about the New World and the exotic peoples, plants, and animals that inhabited Holland's distant colonies.
Frans Post was one of the first European artists to travel to the New World. He was hired by Prince Johan Maurits to travel with him and a team of scientists and artists to document the newly acquired Dutch possessions in Brazil. From 1637 until 1644, the young Post traveled and worked there, making both sketches and fully developed paintings of the local topography. Eighteen such paintings, all of approximately the same size, were presented to the French King Louis XIV by Prince Johan Maurits in 1679; however, only seven of the original eighteen canvases are still known today. Although there is a paucity of works dating from his Brazilian sojourn, Post produced many views of the New World upon his return to Haarlem. Indeed, Post continued to produce images of Brazil until his death in 1680.
Painted almost twenty years after Post returned to Europe, this composition blends both real examples of Brazilian flora and fauna and imaginary landscape elements. Four prominent trees, including coconut, palm, and papaya, fill the left hand portion of the panel, while an exotic snake, armadillo, and other New World creatures wander in the thick growing vegetation that spreads from left to right across the foreground of the composition. The dramatic gestures of a group of natives in the right foreground draw our eyes back into the composition along a diagonal path that leads to a hut and raised platform on which laborers appear to be drying sugarcane. The right middle ground of the composition is dominated by the prominent white plantation house that sits on top of a hill. The mill, complete with thatched roof, water wheel, and a number of workers occupies the space below the house. A panoramic landscape is visible beyond. The jewel-like blue tone of the sky and loose, fluid brushstrokes are characteristic of Post's style in this later phase of his career, and the imagined composition as a whole makes this a type of New World capriccio, with the artist blending his memories of Brazil with his clients' desire to own a bit of the exotic locale for themselves.

A LANDSCAPE IN BRAZIL LOOKING DOWN ON THE VARZEA, EUROPEANS AND NATIVES APPROACHING A CHURCH IN THE FOREGROUND

 

A LANDSCAPE IN BRAZIL LOOKING DOWN ON THE VARZEA, EUROPEANS AND NATIVES APPROACHING A CHURCH IN THE FOREGROUND
signed lower centre: F. POST.
oil on panel
28.2 by 41.9 cm.; 11 1/8 by 16 1/2 in.

 

Sotheby's
Old Master and British Paintings Evening Sale
London | 06 Jul 2011, 07:00 PM | L11033

LOT 30
PROPERTY FROM A PORTUGUESE PRIVATE COLLECTION
FRANS JANSZ. POST
HAARLEM CIRCA 1612 - 1680

ESTIMATE 400,000-600,000 GBP
Lot Sold: 623,650 GBP

 

PROVENANCE
In the collection of the family (Portugal) of the present owner for at least four generations.

 

CATALOGUE NOTE
As far as is known, Post painted nothing other than views or capriccio views of Brazil, the country where he spent seven remarkable years between 1637 and 1644 with the Dutch colonists under Prince Maurits. While only seven paintings (and some drawings) survive from his time in Brazil, from what was a much larger body of work, during the remaining 36 years of his life back in the Netherlands he drew on his recollections from his Brazilian sojourn, evoking for his clientele a sometimes literal (from drawings) but more often partly imagined view of a distant land that must have seemed as alien to them as it did to Post on his disembarkation there in 1637.
Post continued to provide such works for an avid collecting public until the final year of his life and this painting, which came to light only at the end of 2010, has been dated by Pedro Corrêa do Lago to the beginning of the so-called 'fourth phase' of Post's production, circa 1670. It retains much of the brilliance more usually associated with Post's 'third phase' (1661-1669), such as the beautifully observed vine creeping over the rocks in the foreground and the wonderful array of well-crafted natives and Europeans making their way to the church. In terms of composition, execution and technique the work is perhaps best compared with two other views of the marshy plains (called varzea ), one dated 1664, the other 1665. (1) With the 1664 dated work in the John and Mable Ringling Museum, Florida, it shares both a composition built along remarkably similar lines and similar foreground detailing. This compositional type is one oft-repeated in Post's works of the 1660s and 1670s creating as it did a wonderful sense of depth, the eye being led down from the higher ground, dominated by the heavy shades of closely observed flora, to the lighter tones of the distant village and lower marshes.
The do Lagos see the Ringling panel as foreshadowing the painter's style in his fourth phase and compare it to the Landscape with a Sugar Mill in National Museum in Rio de Janeiro which they date to the early 1670s. (2) With the present work Post seems to have taken much greater care than with this latter however, the detailing of the foreground flora and staffage in particular harking back more obviously to the works of the mid-1660s such as the afore-mentioned 1665 dated Varzea landscape. Such discrepancies in the quality of Post's work from one year to another are not uncommon throughout his oeuvre; 1664, when he painted the Ringling work, was a fateful year in the artist's personal life and the likely cause of the artist's gradual decline, but by 1665 when he painted the other version he was clearly back to his best. The present work is amongst the more accomplished panels from circa 1670, comparing favourably with, for example, the landscapes in the London National Gallery and a private collection in Brasilia, two of the best works from the 'fourth phase'. (3) The inspiration of the chapel façade may well be the Franciscan convent of Saint Anthony in Igaraçu that Post painted on several occasions, most prominently in the painting now in the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection, Madrid. Sousa- Leao attributed the design of the similar chapel in one of the Instituto Ricardo Brennad works (both of which portray a chapel of remarkably similar design to that in this painting) to Post's imagination and knowledge of architecture but the fact that the basic design appears in no fewer than (now) seven works, each with only minor differences in the detailing, would suggest that the inspiration is something more 'concrete', probably a since lost topographical drawing
from his time in Brazil. (4) The tonality of the sky is common to Posts from the mid-1660s onwards and it seems probable that the appearance of the sky now is close to its original intention; amongst numerous examples manifesting the seemingly afternoon hues present here are the 1664-dated Ringling view and, into the fourth phase where the effect is more common, the Ruins of Olinda cathedral (Fundaçao Maria Luisa e Oscar Americano, Sao Paolo), (5) and paintings in private collections in Brasilia and Sao Paolo; (6) however there may be some degree of smalt degradation in all of these works. The panel here is bevelled on the lower and right hand edges (as viewed from the reverse), which is typical of panels from Post's mature period. It seems likely that he commonly cut four smaller panels out of one larger.
Following first hand inspection, the attribution has been fully endorsed by Pedro Corrêa do Lago and Frits Duparc.
The painting will be included in the Corrêa do Lagos forthcoming English language edition of the addendum to their
2007 catalogue.
1. See. P. & B. Corrêa do Lago, Frans Post, Brazil 2007, pp. 238-9, nos. 75 and 76.
2. Ibid, p. 303, no. 122.
3. Ibid., pp. 306-7, nos. 125, 126.
4. The main difference between the present work and the other six is the inclusion here of a rectangular grated window beneath the apex of the roof, where all the others depict a circular window. The other six also include a crossbeam immediately below the window. For the six see Correa do Lago, pp. 226-7, no. 65 (Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Caracas); pp. 304-305, nos. 123 & 124 (two in the Instituto Ricardo Brennand, Recife); p. 306, no. 125 (National Gallery of London); p. 307, no. 126 (Private collection, Brasilia); p. 327, no. 146 (private collection, Sao
Paolo).
5. Ibid., no. 120.
6. Ibid., nos. 126 and 146.

Brazilian Landscape with a Worker’s House

Brazilian Landscape with a Worker’s House
Oil on wood
Unframed: 18 1/2 x 24 3/4 in. (46.99 x 62.86 cm.); Framed: 26 x 32 in. (66.04 x 81.28 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Edward W. Carter (M.2003.108.3)
European Painting and Sculpture Department.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, (USA)

Rural Landscape in Brazil

Rural Landscape in Brazil
1664
Oil on wood panel
13 1/2 x 16 1/4 in. (34.3 x 41.3 cm)
Bequest of John Ringling, 1936
SN275, Ringling Museum of Art, Florida (USA)

Brazilian Landscape

Brazilian Landscape
1665
Oil on canvas
18 3/4 x 23 3/8 in. (48 x 59 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Louis V. Keeler, Class of 1911
59.093
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (USA)