Abstract
RESUMO Neste artigo, são apresentados os resultados dos exames arqueométricos de Física aplicada sobre duas peças de mobiliário do acervo do Museu Paulista, uma arca-cofre e uma cadeira de couro de sola feitas por volta do século XVIII. As técnicas de análise utilizadas foram o ED-XRF e o imageamento com fluorescência de luz ultravioleta. As análises interdisciplinares tiveram por objetivo identificar os materiais com os quais as peças foram compostas, evidenciando informações históricas sobre a produção moveleira na cidade de São Paulo no século XVIII e princípios do XIX. Os resultados obtidos permitiram identificar parte dos materiais usados na pintura da arca-cofre, como o branco de chumbo e o vermelhão (ou Cinabre), no couro curtido da cadeira e nas partes metálicas de ferro e latão de ambas as peças, ainda que outros procedimentos ainda necessitem ser aplicados para a obtenção de resultados sobre outros materiais. As informações obtidas com as fontes materiais foram confrontadas com dados de documentação textual mais abrangente, como listas de compras de tintas, relatos de viagem e manuais artísticos da época, de maneira a permitir a contextualização da vida material e econômica da cidade, revelando sua dinamicidade e as intrincadas redes comerciais em que estava imbricada.
Highlights
Based on material culture,[3] we seek to explore to the maximum the information we could extract from two furniture pieces, the RG55 tanned leather chair (Figure 1) and the RG3242 chest-safe (Figure 2), both manufactured in São Paulo between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
We have found only a single inventory of purchase of paints, among other items, commissioned by the City Council of São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro, which provides an additional evidence that such products still went through the port of Santos to be sent up the hills:[67]
We note how the production of furniture serves as an example of the complex forms of production that occurred in the colonial space, having the case of the chest-safe as one of the possible configurations of what could be considered the furniture of Brazil in the eighteenth century – according to the investigation of Angela Brandão70, that is, a furniture piece manufactured in São Paulo with Portuguese-based style, made under the local productive capacities, and with materials imported from Europe
Summary
Seeking to emphasize the importance of historical research through musealized artifacts and to explore their potential, this article seeks to understand the socioeconomic dynamics of the city of São Paulo between the eighteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth century via the analysis of the remnants of home furniture that were manufactured and used in São Paulo, and that are preserved today in the collection of Museu Paulista of Universidade de São Paulo. Based on material culture,[3] we seek to explore to the maximum the information we could extract from two furniture pieces, the RG55 tanned leather chair (Figure 1) and the RG3242 chest-safe (Figure 2), both manufactured in São Paulo between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries These two pieces – as well as similar ones present in the Museu Paulista collection – have already been analyzed by several authors, considering their rarity for São Paulo’s context and their artistic and formal idiosyncrasies, and both pieces reveal the adaptation of Portuguese styles in the colonial environment, bringing – later – reminiscences of the Portuguese national style.[4] Revealing great richness of information, several study approaches have been made, whether on the meticulous aesthetic and typological bias of José Wasth Rodrigues,[5] whether on their iconographic elements, as scholarly examined by Jaelson Bitran Trindade,[6] in the symbology of the Fifth Empire represented by the bicephalous eagle wrought in the backrest of the chair, or on the contextualization of its social use in the São Paulo domestic space, studied by Maria Aparecida Borrego.[7]. We seek to contribute to the studies on the old São Paulo following the interdisciplinarity path provided by the joining of knowledge from Social History and Archeometry, thereby adding new methodologies and problems to this line
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