{"id":359231,"date":"2020-11-09T15:56:19","date_gmt":"2020-11-09T18:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=359231"},"modified":"2020-11-09T15:56:19","modified_gmt":"2020-11-09T18:56:19","slug":"rescuing-the-watercolors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/rescuing-the-watercolors\/","title":{"rendered":"Rescuing the watercolors"},"content":{"rendered":"

During late 1865 and early 1866, Swiss artist Jacques Burkhardt (1808\u20131867), already ill, stayed in a simple house on the banks of the Amazon River, in the Amazonian city of Tef\u00e9, just over 500 kilometers (km) from Manaus. Stopping in the capital of the state of Amazonas was one of the main stages of the Thayer expedition, privately sponsored in order for Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz (1807\u20131873), a friend of Dom Pedro II (1825\u20131891), to achieve two goals through an unprecedented trip through a large portion of Brazil. The first\u2015disproving Charles Darwin’s (1809\u20131882) theory of evolution, which was gaining traction at the time\u2015was not achieved. The second goal, that of studying Brazilian fish, generated a gigantic amount of data. About 80,000 specimens of Brazilian fauna, mostly fish, were taken to the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, founded by Agassiz in the United States.<\/p>\n

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Reproduced from Peixes do Brasil: Aquarela de Jacques Burkhardt 1865\u20131866<\/em><\/span><\/a> The Swiss illustrator produced 1,100 watercolors depicting Brazilian fish, but the whereabouts of about half of the drawings are unknownReproduced from Peixes do Brasil: Aquarela de Jacques Burkhardt 1865\u20131866<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

An incredible by-product of the Thayer expedition\u2015a set of watercolors by Burkhardt depicting salt- and freshwater fish\u2015can now be appreciated, for the first time, in the book Peixes do Brasil: Aquarela de Jacques Burkhardt 1865<\/em>\u20131866<\/em> (Fish of Brazil: Watercolors by Jacques Brurkhardt 1865\u20131866). Published in 2019 by EDUSP, the volume was edited by two fish specialists from the Museum of Zoology at the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (MZ-USP), Heraldo Britski and Jos\u00e9 Lima Figueiredo. One-third of the 521 detailed drawings included in the book were produced in the Tef\u00e9 house. “Agassiz claimed that the expedition yielded 1,100 drawings of fish. My hope is that publishing the book helps reveal the whereabouts of more of these watercolors,” notes Britski. “We don’t know if the other drawings have been lost completely or if someone still has them somewhere.”<\/p>\n

The expedition left the United States on April 1, 1865 and landed in Rio de Janeiro 23 days later. Several teams were organized in order to simultaneously explore the areas to be studied. The main group, which was led by Agassiz and included the illustrator, explored various locations in the Para\u00edba River basin and collected saltwater fish in the bay at the mouth of the river. The team then headed to the North by ship. After traveling through Salvador, Macei\u00f3, Recife, Fortaleza, and S\u00e3o Lu\u00eds, they arrived in Bel\u00e9m and sailed up the Amazon River to Tabatinga, in the state of Amazonas. On the way back, down the great river, the expeditionaries stayed longer in Tef\u00e9; from there, they went on to Manaus to make short excursions into the Rio Negro region. They then visited Bel\u00e9m once again, made a stop in Fortaleza for one last expedition into rural Cear\u00e1, and returned to Rio de Janeiro. At the end of March 1866, they departed for the United States.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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