Albert Eckhout arrived in Brazil as a court painter for the Dutch governor Johann Maurits van Nassau-Siegen. During his time there, he painted a variety of images intended as a type of “documentation” of the people, land, and wildlife of Brazil. This painting is one of eight ethnographic images he produced along these lines. This painting depicts an African man, clad only in a loincloth that emphasize his genitals. On the ground by his feet are a variety of exotic goods including sehlls and an elephant tusk. The tree to his right, the date palm, is native to west Africa rather than Brazil, which suggests this figure might be located in an African landscape.
Literature: Brienen, Rebecca Parker. Visions of Savage Paradise: Albert Eckhout, Court Painter in Colonial Dutch Brazil. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006.
Image source: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/258420
QUILOMBO DOS PALMARES AND SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY BRAZIL 