Brazilian Landscape

At the age of 25, the Dutchman Frans Post accompanied — along with other artists and scientists — Count Johann Moritz von Nassau-Siegen to Brazil. The expedition lasted eight years. Post collected copious specimens of the northern Brazilian flora and fauna. When he returned to the Netherlands, he turned this material into paintings which were highly sought after by the public and were documents of a Eurocentric view. For their purchasers they satisfied their pride in the colonial successes of the Netherlands as well as their urge to dream themselves away to a far-off paradisial place by ignoring the real living conditions around them.