Red and suberb roses. The Luso Brazilian women body on travel literature (Eighteenth an Nineteenth Centuries)

Abstract

The female body is one of the great mysteries for European travelers who visited Brazil between the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries. On one side white woman does not correspond to classical ideals of beauty and modesty, on the other, the beauty seems to be characteristic only of black and mulatto women. This article aims to review some of the images created from the travel accounts on the Luso-Brazilian women, revisiting some myths as the absence of women in public spaces, the “oriental” jealousy of their fathers and husbands, the neglect of white women and sensuality of black and mulattos.