"On the Left, the Boutique of a vettewarier or Retailer; on the Right, the Boutique of a snerie or Tailor; in the Middle, a Naked Negro having his Measurement Taken for some Clothes" (caption translation). This engraving shows three separate scenes occurring out of the windows and front door of a single house. "The vette-warier," Benoit wrote, "are usually owned by Jewish merchants, but the tailor shops are sometimes held by slaves who have slaves working for them." 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.

"Figure 32" in Pierre Jacques Benoit, Voyage à Surinam; description des possessions néerlandaises dans la Guyane (Bruxelles: Société des Beaux-Arts de Wasme et Laurent, 1839).

Benoit, Pierre Jacques

French

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

BEN16a

South America--Suriname--Paramaribo

"A gauche, la boutique d'un vette-warier ou détaillant; à droite, la boutique d'un snerie ou tailleur; au milieu, un nègre nu se faisant prendre mesure d'un vêtement", Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora, accessed March 20, 2023, http://www.slaveryimages.org/s/slaveryimages/item/2358