Lot 107: JOSHUA BRYANT (1798-1835)

JOSHUA BRYANT (1798-1835)
THREE PANORAMAS OF A SUGAR PLANTATION, DEMERARA
One signed and dated 'Jos Bryant Pinx. 1830' (lower left), one signed and dated 'Jos: Bryant 1830' (lower right), and one signed 'Jos: Bryant P ...' (lower left), the first signed, titled and dated '... Residence as seen from the top of the Distilling House painted by Joshua Bryant 1830.' on the remains of an old label on the stretcher, the third signed and dated 'Joshua Bryant Demerara August 11th 1827' on a fragment of the original stretcher attached to the reverse
oil on canvas
24 x 48 in. (60.9 x 121.9 cm.) (3)

This lot will be subject to VAT at the rate of 17.5% on the buyer's premium only.
British Guiana was originally settled by the Dutch as the colonies of Essequibo, Demerara, and Berbice. These three colonies were captured by the British in 1796, officially ceded to the United Kingdom in 1814, and consolidated into a single colony in 1831.

The economy of British Guiana was completely dominated by sugarcane production until the 1880s. Dutch settlement and economic activity was concentrated around sugar plantations lying inland from the coast. Under the British, cane planting expanded to richer coastal lands with greater coastline protection (as can be seen in Bryant's three views).

Until the abolition of slavery across the British Empire in 1834, sugar planters relied very heavily on slave labour to produce sugar. Bryant, a British landscape artist who had exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1798 until his departure for British Guiana in 1809, wrote the first account of the slave rebellion in Demerara in 1823 (Account of an Insurrection of the Negro Slaves in the Colony of Demerara, which broke out on the 18th August, 1823, Georgetown, 1824). His narrative includes a brief note on his residence and activities in British Guiana: 'The present Writer, who has constantly resided in the colony for the last fifteen years, has, in his profession as an Artist, accumulated a variety of Graphic Studies from Nature, -- and intends, if suitable encouragement offers, to publish in England a selection of the best, with editions from a new port-folio, which he proposes to form as soon as circumstances shall permit' (op. cit., p.vi).

Bryant's account of the insurrection was illustrated with thirteen engravings after the author's drawings but his portfolio of views never came to fruition. The present three views are from a larger group of panoramic pictures of the colony now dispersed in private collections.