Marché aux Negres

Description

"Slave Market" (caption translation). This image shows men, women and children being sold. Some are cooking food over an open fire. Johann Moritz Rugendas (1802–1858) was a German painter, famous for his works depicting landscapes and ethnographic subjects in the Americas, in the first half of the nineteenth century. Rugendas arrived in Brazil in 1822, hired as an illustrator for Baron von Langsdorff's scientific expedition. Rugendas remained on his own in Brazil until 1825, exploring and recording his many impressions of daily life in the provinces of Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, and quickly the coastal provinces of Bahia and Pernambuco on his journey back to Europe. He produced mostly drawings and watercolors. He returned to Europe and between 1827 and 1835 he published his book with the help of Victor Aimé Huber. For an analysis of Rugendas' drawings, as these were informed by his anti-slavery views, see Robert W. Slenes, African Abrahams, "Lucretias and Men of Sorrows: Allegory and Allusion in the Brazilian Anti-slavery Lithographs (1827-1835) of Johann Moritz Rugendas," Slavery & Abolition, 23 (2002), p. 147-168. Daniel Mannix, Black Cargoes (New York, 1962; after p. 146), erroneously captions this illustration as "A slave market in Martinique, early nineteenth century."

Source

Johann Moritz Rugendas, Voyage Pittoresque dans le Bresil. Traduit de l'Allemand (Paris, 1835; also published in same year in German). Reprinted in Viagem Pitoresca Atravé do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, 1972; images shown on this website), and in color from original water colors, in Viagem Pitoresca Atravé do Brasil (Editora Itatiaia Limitada, Editora da Universidade de Sao Paulo, 1989). Both 1835 French and German original editions were published in black/white.

Creator

Rugendas, Johann Moritz

Language

French
German

Rights

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

Identifier

H018

Spatial Coverage

South America--Brazil--Bahia

Item sets

Slave Sales & Auctions: African Coast & the Americas

Citation

"Marché aux Negres", Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora, accessed September 30, 2023, http://www.slaveryimages.org/s/slaveryimages/item/1973
"Slave Market" (caption translation). This image shows men, women and children being sold. Some are cooking food over an open fire. Johann Moritz Rugendas (1802–1858) was a German painter, famous for his works depicting landscapes and ethnographic subjects in the Americas, in the first half of the nineteenth century. Rugendas arrived in Brazil in 1822, hired as an illustrator for Baron von Langsdorff's scientific expedition. Rugendas remained on his own in Brazil until 1825, exploring and recording his many impressions of daily life in the provinces of Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, and quickly the coastal provinces of Bahia and Pernambuco on his journey back to Europe. He produced mostly drawings and watercolors. He returned to Europe and between 1827 and 1835 he published his book with the help of Victor Aimé Huber. For an analysis of Rugendas' drawings, as these were informed by his anti-slavery views, see Robert W. Slenes, African Abrahams, "Lucretias and Men of Sorrows: Allegory and Allusion in the Brazilian Anti-slavery Lithographs (1827-1835) of Johann Moritz Rugendas," Slavery & Abolition, 23 (2002), p. 147-168. Daniel Mannix, Black Cargoes (New York, 1962; after p. 146), erroneously captions this illustration as "A slave market in Martinique, early nineteenth century."
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