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EIGHTTEEN PAPIER MACHE FIGURES FROM TWO DIORAMAS DEPICTING A GROUP OF CREOLES AND A GROUP OF INDIANS

BY GERRIT SCHOUTEN, SURINAM, CIRCA 1810-1839

Details

EIGHTTEEN PAPIER MACHE FIGURES FROM TWO DIORAMAS DEPICTING A GROUP OF CREOLES AND A GROUP OF INDIANS
BY GERRIT SCHOUTEN, SURINAM, CIRCA 1810-1839
The figures represented in various poses and with various attributes such as drums and a canoe
2.5 cm. to 10 cm. high (19)

Special notice

Christie’s charges a premium to the buyer on the Hammer Price of each lot sold at the following rates: 29.75% of the Hammer Price of each lot up to and including €5,000, plus 23.8% of the Hammer Price between €5,001 and €400,000, plus 14.28% of any amount in excess of €400,001. Buyer’s premium is calculated on the basis of each lot individually.

Lot Essay

The figures in this lot would originally have been placed in a diorama box complete with buildings and background scenery. There are at least three dioramas by Gerrit Schouten in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. Gerrit Schouten (1779-1839) was a Surinam artist who specialised in Botanical and zoological drawings, later he started making dioramas from paper and wood. These dioramas which Schouten started making in 1810 untill his death in 1839, were comissioned as souvenirs by Europeans tarvelling in Surinam. Typically they depict slave life and Indian life.
The son of a Dutchman and a coloured mother, Gerrit Schouten is seen as the first true Surinam artist.
Cf. Clazien Medendorp, Geschiedenis in een kijkkastje Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum - no. 3, 2006, pp. 235-245.

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