Gerrit Carl François Schouten

signed and dated 'G. Schouten fecit 1818.' (on a paper label in the lower left corner)
wood, glue, painted paper and glass
19 1⁄4 x 30 3⁄4 x 9 1⁄4in. (48.9 x 78.3 x 23.5cm.)
Gerrit Schouten was born in 1799 in Paramaribo, the administrative centre of the Dutch colony of Surinam, the son of the poet Hendrick Schouten and Suzanna Johanna Hanssen, a free coloured native of Surinam. A botanical and animal painter, he is best known for over forty dioramas which describe the Dutch colony of Surinam in the early 19th century, the majority now in institutional collections in the Netherlands. Schouten was commissioned to produce two dioramas of the indigenous peoples of Suri
Schouten's dioramas range in size from 35cm. to 170cm. wide, the glazed cabinets made from Surinam hardwoods and European soft woods, including from boxes used to import goods into the colony. The models, carefully shaped to work in correct perspective, are made of paper and mounted with an animal glue. Most, as here, bear a label in the lower left corner of the case with the artist's signature.
' ... Schouten is best known today for his dioramas ... In this pre-photography era, he introduced the 'raree show' to the colony, capturing the memories of plantation owners, merchants and travellers of their property or their stay in Suriname. Made to order, these were expensive items. Some dioramas cost no less than 500 guilders, the sort of amount one might have paid for an enslaved person. Schouten was born and bred in Paramaribo and was able to live from his artistic work, and this led him
Surinam or Dutch Guyana was a flourishing plantation colony ceded to the Dutch by the British in 1667. The territory attracted the Dutch planters who had been expelled from Brazil in the mid-17th century and produced sugar on large plantations worked by slaves from West Africa through the 18th to the mid-19th century, the slaves replaced by indentured labour from India and Java after abolition in Surinam in 1863.
For a similar diorama by Schouten of an Arowak Camp, see Christie's, London, 29 Oct. 2019, lot 43.