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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
In the october, 1949, issue of THE AMERICAS the present writer published an article on the wood-beach at Recife in Brazil as it existed in late colonial days. To this the editor very kindly added the subtitle “A Contribution to the Economic History of Brazil.” Since the article appeared I have received a number of communications from historians in Brazil and in Portugal who commented with such interest upon the subject that I feel justified in soliciting more space in THE AMERICAS in order to present a discovery I have recently made. Since it concerns the authorship of the extraordinary watercolor around which the article was written, it is of vital importance to the subject.
The old wood-beach in the harbor of Recife, the capital of the rich colonial captaincy of Pernambuco, was the storage place for the valuable shipments of tropical woods to Portugal and other parts of the Portuguese Empire, which constituted a major element in Brazilian eighteenth-century trading. In the Arquivo Militar of Rio de Janeiro there is a view of the area showing in great detail the warehouse, the government and other buildings that surrounded it, as well as men working on the shore and loading ships that lie at anchor in the harbor. This watercolor, which was published in THE AMERICAS, is signed by José de Oliveira Barbosa and dated 1788. The author gave as his only identification the phrase “of the Regiment of Olinda.” Since an examination of the records of this regiment in the year 1788, which are now at the Arquivo Histórico Colonial in Lisbon, failed to show Barbosa’s name among the officers, I reached the conclusion that at that time the man did not have the rank of officer and so stated in my article.
1 Vol. VI, no. 2, pp. 215-234, 6 illustrations.
2 Antônio Duarte Nunes, Alamanac histórico da cidade de S. Sebastiao do Rio de Janeiro, “Revista do Instituto histórico e geographico brazileiro,” XXI (Rio, 1858), 5-176.
3 Ibid., p. 80.
4 Almanaques da cidade do Rio de Janeiro para os anos de 1792 e 1774 (Rio, 1940).
5 Ibid., p. 49.
6 Ibid., p. 112.
7 Ibid., p. 15.
8 Adolfo Morales de los Rios Filho, Grandjean de Montigy e a evoluçao da arte brasileira (Rio, n. d.), p. 246.
9 This date was provided by the historian Noronha Santos and was transmitted to me through the kindness of Dr. Rodrigo Melo Franco de Andrade, Director of the Departamento do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional of the Ministério da Educaçao e Saude.
Senhor Santos has added the information that Barbosa served for thirty-four years in the artillery and seventeen in the Military Academy. In 1817, after returning from Africa, he was named commander of the Royal Police Guard, and in 1822 he served briefly from November 10 to 14 as Minister of War. He died in Rio Comprido and was buried in the church of San Francisco de Paula of Rio de Janeiro.
10 The residence was a severe French neoclassic building of large proportions with an interesting circular gallery overlooking an interior court. It was demolished in 1936, and the Metro Theater was erected on its site. The architect’s biographer, Morales de los Rios Filho, says that it was commissioned by D. Brito de Sousa e Meneses, who presented it to D. Ana Dorotea de Oliveira Barbosa, sister of José, on the occasion of his marriage to that lady (op. cit., p. 246).
11 Smith, Robert C., Jesuit Buildings in Brazil, “Art Bulletin,” vol. XXX, no. 3 (September, 1948), appendix 1.Google Scholar