Victor Meirelles

Victor Meirelles was the great history painter of 19th century Brazil. His large, carefully composed canvases turned events from the country’s past into national images, painted in the academic tradition with balanced groups of figures and clear, even light.

He was born in Desterro, today Florianópolis, and studied at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro. A travel prize in 1852 took him to Europe, where he studied in Rome and in Paris under Léon Cogniet. In Paris he painted The First Mass in Brazil (1858 to 1861), which became one of the best known images in Brazilian art. He later taught at the Imperial Academy and painted battle scenes and large panoramas. His birthplace is now the Victor Meirelles Museum.

Our list includes the Battle of Guararapes (1879), a vast scene of the 17th century victory over the Dutch, and Moema, a poetic image of a young Indigenous woman lying on the shore.