Title: Negresses Allant a L’Eglise, Pour Etre Baptisées [Black Women Going to Church to Be Baptized]
Source
Jean Baptiste Debret, Voyage Pittoresque et Historique au Bresil (Paris, 1834-39), vol. 3, plate 8, p. 129 (top). (Copy in the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University)
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
Bejeweled & draped in ornate folds of fabric, two Afro-Brazilian mothers bring their children to what may be their baptism. The clergyman, also a man of African descent, awaits the family’s arrival. This drawing gives us insight into the sartorial expression of some Afro-Brazilians during the early to mid-nineteenth century. This drawing was done during Debret’s stay in Brazil (1816 to 1831). More of his images can be found in the Viagem Pitoresca e Historica ao Brasil [Pictoresque & Historic Trip to Brazil] Editora Itatiaia Limitada, Editora da Universidade de Sao Paulo, 1989.
