Source

Henry Chamberlain, Views and costumes of the city and neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from drawings taken by Lieutenant Chamberlain, Royal Artillery, during the years 1819 and 1820, with descriptive explanations (London, 1822). The illustration shown here is taken from the Brazilian (Portuguese) edition, Vistas e costumes de cidade e arredores do Rio de Janeiro em 1819-1820 (Livaria Kosmos, Rio de Janeiro, 1943), p. 105 (plate 4 in the 1822 London edition). (Copy in University of Florida Library, Gainesville)

Rights

Image is in the public domain. All images on Afro-Brazil: A Visual History are intended to be used for educational purposes only.

Description

This is a scene from the daily life of many women in nineteenth-century Brazil. Free women of African descent especially sold varieties of fruits, fish, crops, and drinks, such as the cachaça and wine held on the tray of one woman [3rd photo]. If you look at the 4th photo, you will see a man at the right playing an instrument called the berimbau [also known as a madimba lungungo].
The image is from a book of drawings by an Englishman named Henry Chamberlain, (1819 – 1820) who reproduced watercolors done by Portuguese artist Joaquim Candido Guillobel in 1812~.