Nègres s'amusant à jouer au billard
"Negros Enjoying Themselves Playing Billiards" (caption translation). This engraving shows a pool hall filled with people of colour playing billiards and drinking. Benoit wrote that "a recreational diversion to which the colonists and above all the Negroes are passionately devoted is playing games, billiards being the most preferred." Pierre Jacques Benoit (1782-1854) was a Belgian artist, who visited the Dutch colony of Suriname on his own initiative for several months in 1831. He stayed in Paramaribo, but visited plantations, maroon communities and indigenous villages inland.
Image Title
Nègres s'amusant à jouer au billard
RegID
SI-OB-935
Date
1831
Title
Nègres s'amusant à jouer au billard
Source
"Figure 37" in Pierre Jacques Benoit, Voyage à Surinam; description des possessions néerlandaises dans la Guyane (Bruxelles: Société des Beaux-Arts de Wasme et Laurent, 1839).
Language
French
Item sets
Music, Dance & Recreational Activities
Spatial Coverage
South America--Suriname--Paramaribo
Researchers
Jerome Handler; Michael Tuite; Henry B. Lovejoy Graduate Research Assistants: Tiffany Beebe; Travis May
Last Updated
2-May-12; 3-Sep-19
Identifier
BEN11b