Festival of Our Lady of the Rosary, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, ca. 1770s
Source
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 35. 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)
Description
Shows elaborate clothing styles of female slave participants in the festival; they wear high heeled shoes with buckles, necklaces and other jewelry. Two of the women carry silver trays filled with coins which they begged from spectators. The group follows a small boy wearing colorful clothing adorned by feathers, holding a piece of wood and a small ax. 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).
Creator
Juliao, Carlos
Date Created
1770-1780
Language
Portuguese
Rights
Metadata is available under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
Identifier
juliao11