Paris and Chicago:

The Participation of Independência ou morte! at the Universal Exhibitions of 1889 and 1893

Abstract

This article examines the circulation of Pedro Américo de Figueiredo e Mello’s Independência ou morte! at the Universal Exhibitions of Paris (1889) and Chicago (1893) and the painting’s role in visual narratives of nationhood in the late Empire and early Republic. Drawing on newspapers, catalogues, reproductions, and the artist’s correspondence, it engages Robert Rydell’s view of world’s fairs as devices of symbolic power and Ulpiano Meneses’s reflections on visual culture and object biography. The article argues that the painting assumed distinct statuses: In Paris, it circulated in fragmented form through studies and reproductions; in Chicago, it became part of a Republican narrative linking independence to Paulista protagonism. The article concludes that these exhibitions expanded its international circulation and contributed to its insertion into the national imaginary prior to its musealization at the Museu do Ipiranga.