12 Facts About Frans Post

Frans Janszoon Post was a painter during the Dutch Golden Age.

Frans Post was the first European artist to paint landscapes of the Americas, during and after the period of Dutch Brazil.

Frans Post's works were widely collected in The Netherlands, Europe, and Brazil, with the works showing an idealized vision of Dutch colonial rule.

Frans Post was born in Haarlem circa 1612 and he most likely received his early training from his father and his elder brother.

Frans Post was a contemporary of Frans Hals, who painted his portrait, and prominent Haarlem landscape painters such as the brothers Jacob and Salomon van Ruysdael, Adriaen and Isaac van Ostade, and in particular Pieter de Molijn.

Frans Post won a commission at court likely through the connections of his older brother and was encouraged to travel abroad by John Maurice, Prince of Nassau-Siegen.

Frans Post received 800 guilders for a landscape painting in the West Indies commissioned by Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, leading Larsen to believe that Post set out for The Netherlands via Africa shortly before Nassau departed Brazil.

Frans Post had two sons, who died before his death and one daughter that did survive him, but died shortly thereafter.

Frans Post continued to paint Brazilian scenes until 1669, and the lack of dated paintings in the 1670s suggests he stopped ten years before his death.

The paintings Frans Post produced while he was in Brazil drastically differ from those he painted after he left Brazil.

Frans Post includes a selection of Brazilian vegetation, and occasionally features birds and other small animals in the foreground.

Frans Post continued to paint images of Brazil upon his return to The Netherlands in 1642; however, his work undergoes a radical transformation.