The man on the left is simply identified as a Black Seller of Capim, a type of grass or Guinea grass which he is carrying on his head; while the man on the right is specifically identified as a Slave Seller of Milk, and is shown with a pot of milk on his head; he is also wearing the iron collar and leg band that was placed on slaves who had a tendency to become fugitives. Born in Italy ca. 1740, Juliao joined the Portuguese army and traveled widely in the Portuguese empire; by the 1760s or 1770s he was in Brazil, where he died in 1811 or 1814. For a detailed analysis and critique of Juliao's figures as representations of Brazilian slave life, as well as a biographical sketch of Juliao and suggested dates for his paintings, see Silvia Hunold Lara, Customs and Costumes: Carlos Juliao and the Image of Black Slaves in Late Eighteenth-Century Brazil (Slavery & Abolition, vol. 23 [2002], pp. 125-146).

Carlos Juliao, Riscos illuminados de figurinhos de broncos e negros dos uzos do Rio de Janeiro e Serro do Frio (Rio de Janeiro, 1960), plate 34. The prints used as plates in this book are housed in the Secao de Iconografia in the National Library of Brazil; the historical introduction and descriptive catalog were written by Lygia da Foneseca Fernandes da Cunha. (Copy in Tulane University Library)

Juliao, Carlos

Portuguese

Image is in the public domain. Metadata is available under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International.

juliao10

South America--Brazil--Rio de Janeiro

"Male Hawkers or Marketers, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, ca. 1770s", Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora, accessed September 25, 2023, http://slaveryimages.org/s/slaveryimages/item/701