Chamberlain, Henry (Lieut.)
First edition of one of the most important 19th century illustrated books on Rio de Janeiro, combining panoramic views of the city and its surroundings with a remarkable series of representations of its inhabitants, occupations and everyday life.
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'[T]he finest English colour plate book on Brazil' (Tooley).
'[O]ne of the most beautiful, and also one of the rarest, books published about Brazil in the nineteenth century' (Borba de Moraes).
The work contains 36 plates after drawings made by Chamberlain during his residence in Rio de Janeiro in 1819 and 1820. Combining broad views of the city and its dramatic natural setting with scenes of streets, markets, buildings, occupations and inhabitants, the work preserves an unusually rich picture of Rio at a moment of profound political and social transformation. The drawings were made only a few years after the Portuguese court had established itself in the city and shortly before the declaration of Brazilian independence in 1822, the same year in which the book appeared in London.
Of historical importance are Chamberlain’s representations of enslaved Africans and Afro-Brazilians, who appear throughout the work as an integral part of the commercial and domestic life of the city. Plates such as The Slave Market, Sick Slaves, Pretos de Ganho, The Rêde, or Net, and Funeral of a Negro document the visible presence of slavery in the streets, markets, transport systems and households of Rio. Taken together with the accompanying explanatory texts, these images constitute important visual evidence for the study of slavery, labour and everyday life in early 19th century Brazil.
The work is equally significant as a topographical record. The five large folding plates offer expansive views of Rio and its surroundings, while the remaining images record architecture, public spaces, costumes, street trades and modes of transport. Chamberlain’s combination of panoramic landscape and close observation of urban life gives the book a breadth unusual even among the great illustrated travel works of the period.
The plates were produced in London in aquatint after Chamberlain’s drawings, creating a work which at the same time of considerable visual refinement as well as documentary value. Its importance has long been recognized by bibliographers of Brazil and of English color-plate books. It is one of the rarest works of Brazilian iconography.
Provenance: M. Pimenta Camargo, bookplate on front pastedown ‘Constantia et Fortitudine’; Antonio Bonchristiano, bookplate on front pastedown.
Abbey, Travel, 707; Borba de Moraes, I, p. 178; Tooley, 178.
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