Sea Captains Carousing in Suriname
- Artist
- John Greenwood, English (born colonial North America), 1727–1792
- Date
- c.1755–58
- Material
- Oil on bed ticking
- depicts
- Suriname, South America
- Classification
- Paintings
- Current Location
- On View, Gallery 338
- Dimensions
- 37 3/4 x 75 in. (95.9 x 190.5 cm)
framed: 42 3/4 x 80 1/8 x 3 1/16 in. (108.6 x 203.5 x 7.8 cm) - Credit Line
- Museum Purchase
- Rights
- Contact Us
- Object Number
- 256:1948
NOTES
It’s 2:00 am, and a group of intoxicated men in a tavern dance, smoke, guzzle spiced rum, cheat at cards, doze off, and even vomit from overindulgence. The raucous scene took place in the prosperous Dutch colony of Suriname (now the Republic of Suriname) in South America. Four Black men and women serve beverages or doze nearby. They, or their ancestors, had been captured in West Africa and transported by the Dutch West India Company to Suriname, whose economy relied on the stolen labor, knowledge, and skills of enslaved workers to produce the colony’s primary crop of sugar cane.
Boston-born artist John Greenwood lived in Suriname from 1752 to 1758, painting portraits of visiting merchants, who built fortunes by trading commodities among colonial outposts in the Americas. According to the painting’s early owners, many men depicted here came from prominent Rhode Island families involved in this trade. Greenwood’s painting offers a glimpse into movements of people, goods, and ideas as 18th-century empires intersected around the Atlantic Ocean.
Boston-born artist John Greenwood lived in Suriname from 1752 to 1758, painting portraits of visiting merchants, who built fortunes by trading commodities among colonial outposts in the Americas. According to the painting’s early owners, many men depicted here came from prominent Rhode Island families involved in this trade. Greenwood’s painting offers a glimpse into movements of people, goods, and ideas as 18th-century empires intersected around the Atlantic Ocean.