Escrava Romana [Roman Slave]

One of Oscar Pereira da Silva's best-known works, "Roman Slave" places the spectator before a 21-year-old virgin Roman slave, as the plaque hung on his neck supposedly indicates. The young woman's virginity would increase her market value, an attraction for anyone interested in acquiring it. However, her pose seems to contradict plaque information: how could a virgin be so provocative, fluent in the art of seduction, and have such an insinuating look? The canvas was executed around 1894, at a time when slavery in Brazil was still an extremely recent memory - it had been abolished in 1888. Thus, undoubtedly the observers of the time, mostly (if not all) men and whites, would draw parallels between the black slave -- used to satiate her lords' wishes -- and the white Roman slave, who sells her virginity to the spectator.

It is interesting to note that below the signature of the artist there is a small inscription, recently discovered when the work was cleaned on the occasion of the new layout of Pina's collection; it reads: "2nd painting by the same author", that is, it is a second version. It is known that the artist painted some of his works more than once for a variety of reasons. The first version of "Roman Slave" is today in a private collection.

Pereira da Silva was one of the most popular painters of São Paulo in the early twentieth century. Born in São Fidélis, in 1880 he moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he studied with Victor Meirelles, Zeferino da Costa and Chaves Pinheiro at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts. He was awarded the European Travel Prize in 1887, moving to Paris, where he studied with Léon Gérôme (1824-1904) and Léon Bonnat (1833-1922). He returned to Brazil in 1896 and, for unclear reasons, settled in São Paulo, and not in Rio de Janeiro, as would be expected. Here he developed most of his work: innumerable landscapes, portraits and genre paintings; decorative panels for important spaces of the city, such as the foyer of the Municipal Theater; historical paintings for the Museu Paulista and sacras for the churches of Consolação and Santa Cecilia. He was professor of an entire generation of painters and in 1897 he founded the Artistic Center, which later became the School of Fine Arts.