MASP

The two rather inconsistent titles – Indians Crossing a Creek (The Slave Hunter) – given to the canvas are probably as recent as its attribution, which is not substantiated with documents or circumstantial analysis. However, both the sufficient quality of the painting, in agreement with the artist’s usual methods, and the social and ethnological awareness shown in the rendition of such a delicate theme led to an attribution to Debret that has not met with significant objection. Comparison with a certified work by Debret such as Visit to an Hacienda in Santa Cruz, of 1831, (Bulhões de Carvalho Collection, Rio de Janeiro), similar in many ways to the Masp painting, is valuable not only because it resolutely endorses the attribution, but also because it assists in dating. Although it was painted in the third decade of the 19th century, the work recreates a somewhat stereotyped landscape composition typical of the figurative situation of the late 1700s. The silvery waterfall, the arrangement of lighting on rocks of conventionally picturesque formats, the studied “freshness” of the vegetation, etc. are remnant of the landscape painting of artists such as Jean-Baptiste Lallemand (1710-1803) or Jean Pillement (1728-1808). However, Debret’s canvas features neither the same gracefulness and lightness, nor the same culture-nature interchange that account for the charm of the petits maîtres of 18th-century French art.

— Unknown authorship, 1998

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