Daily Life in Brazil in the early 17th Century on a Copper Engraving by Montanus
€ 450
Original antique · The actual sheet photographed · Certificate of authenticity on request · Sold unframed · Worldwide shipping from € 15 (rates)
Sheet size
31 × 19 cm (12.2 × 7.5 in)
Condition
Good
Reference
BG-13596-29
What the condition grades mean
Excellent
Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
Very good
Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
Good
Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
Fair
Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.
Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.
Condition
Expected age-related tonality changes and potential marginal foxing. The paper shows signs of handling, such as soft creases and wear along left edge. Tiny corner in top left cut off. Please review the images for further condition details.
About this sheet
Two standing figures and a third seated behind them in a scene from Brazil, an original copper engraving from the German edition of Arnoldus Montanus's Die Unbekante Neue Welt oder Beschreibung des Welt-teils Amerika und des Sud-Landes, published in Amsterdam by Jacob Meurs in 1673. The plate is headed "Brasil" and numbered 409 at the upper right.
A man on the left walks toward the viewer with a large basket strapped to his back and a smaller basket of roots held before him. A second man stands at the right with one hand on his hip and the other held open in conversation, wearing a feather headdress. Behind them a third figure with a headdress and a quiver of arrows is seen over a low wall, and beyond a palisade a hammock hangs between palms. A shrub with large fruit grows at the right, and a mountain rises in the background.
Montanus compiled his account of the Americas from earlier travel writers, and the plates in this edition, like this one, show how seventeenth-century Europeans pictured the peoples and plants of Brazil.
