JOHANN MORITZ RUGENDASpintor das Américas Alexander von HumboldtIMPORTANT VIEWS OF CHILE AND PERU FROM A CORPORATE COLLECTIONThe following nine masterpieces by Rugendas date from his years in Chile and Peru, from July 1834 to January 1845, on his ‘Gran Viaje Americano’, the second of his great American journeys. Johann Moritz was the seventh generation of a distinguished Augsburg family of artists of Huguenot stock, a descendant of the famous baroque battle painter Georg Phillip Rugendas and pupil of the painter of Napoleonic battle scenes, Albrecht Adam. He had spent three years in Brazil from March 1822 to May 1825, on his first American journey, as artist attached to Langsdorff’s expedition into the Brazilian interior. Although he joined the expedition for the journey to Minas Gerais in May-November 1824, Rugendas’s relationship with the Prussian naturalist and Russia’s Consul-General in Rio de Janeiro was difficult, as he was already breaking the terms of his contract and looking to work on his own project shortly after arriving in Brazil. His own ambitious project was fully realised in the sumptuous and encyclopaedic Voyage pittoresque dans le Brésil published in Paris in 1835, which rendered a systematic and exhaustive study of Brazilian landscape, flora, fauna, and peoples. Rugendas had returned to Europe from Brazil in 1825, and worked on his Voyage in Paris, where he made important new contacts, most importantly the Prussian natural historian Alexander von Humboldt, who admired his Brazilian work and encouraged the artist’s first oil studies of tropical vegetation. Rugendas embarked from Bordeaux for Vera Cruz in Mexico in May 1825 on his second great journey, inspired by the natural historian’s urge for him to depict the diverse landscapes, coastal plains and cordillera of Central and South America that Humboldt himself had crossed at the turn of the century. Rugendas started in Mexico by fulfilling Humboldt’s remit, concentrating on the landscape, its vegetation and geology becoming centre stage, and works were sent back to Humboldt in Berlin, as artist and scientist collaborated on their shared empirical agenda.There was a gradual shift in emphasis in Rugendas’s work, once he landed in Valparaiso from Acapulco in July 1834 and began his South American travels: ‘Although he never abandoned Rugendas as a friend, Humboldt could ‘not [then] have imagined how far his protégé would depart from this guidance’. Without avoiding volcanoes or the desolate passes of the cordillera, the arid spaces of the highlands or dense vegetation of the tropics, Rugendas turned from the precise depiction of typological specimens (albeit always in their natural context) such as he had produced in Brazil, and from the grandiose and prodigal aspects of nature, to the people and customs of the human settlements, shown against more generalized backgrounds of natural grandeur in which he emphasized the human rather than the monumental scale.’ (S.L. Catlin, ‘Traveller-Reporter Artists and the Empirical Tradition in Post-Independence Latin America’, in D. Ades, Art in Latin America, The Modern Era, 1820-1980 (Hayward Gallery exhibition catalogue), London, 1989, p.50)The present nine canvases describe the social history of Chile and Peru in the years immediately following independence, and are the highpoint of the Rugendas’s work which marks this shift from natural to social history, to a description of the historical and cultural fabric of the territories. The canvases are crammed with the artist’s detailed and lively descriptions of this fabric, the highly picturesque crucible from which the new hybrid societies of South America emerge. The subjects also allow an expression of Rugendas’s full complement of skills, old and new. In Chile and Peru the equestrian artist of the distinguished Rugendas family atelier first re-emerges, as does the skilled draughtsman and figure painter who had been prompted by the regional Italian tradition of painting costume and types on his Italian tour in 1828. Rugendas left France for America influenced by the romanticism that was taking hold in the wake of the July 1830 revolution, and it was the impetus of romanticism that would drive his successful integration of artistic creation and scientific knowledge on his ‘Gran Viaje Americano’ between 1831 and 1845. His fourteen years of travel took in seven countries: Mexico 1831-1834, Chile 1834-1842, Peru and Bolivia 1842-1844, Argentina and Uruguay 1845, and Brazil 1845-1846. ‘Rugendas travelled further, and over a longer period, than any of his contemporaries, and evolved the most expressively consistent style in more than 5,000 paintings and drawings he produced between 1821 and 1847 in Mexico and South America. Sarmiento paired him with Humboldt in his often-quoted tribute: ‘Humboldt with pen and Rugendas with brush are the two Europeans who have portrayed America most truthfully.’ ‘ (S.L. Catlin, op. cit., p.49) On his final leg of this great journey, once again in Brazil, his friend and fellow artist Felix-Émile Taunay, now director of the Academy of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro, praised the artist’s greatest accomplishment, his Shakespearean fluency in expressing ‘the passions and emotions of the soul’. He spoke at the opening of the exhibition of Rugendas's work at the Academy’s Salon in 1846, on the eve of the German artist's final departure from the American Continent: ‘no por colorido ni por el acierto del dibujo, sino por la gracia, por la facilidad con que representa la estructura humana en sus más diversos y variados aspectos y, sobre todo, por los merecimientos superiores de la composición y de la expresión; el autor es muy feliz en las líneas de equilibrio, en la seguridad con que representa el cuerpo, las pasiones y las emociones del alma.’ (quoted in D. Mello Júnior, ‘João Maurício Rugendas nas exposições de Belas Artes de 1845 e 1846’, Mensário do Arquivo Nacional, Sao Paulo, Col. IEB 5 (12), 1974, p.22)RUGENDAS IN CHILE, 1834-1842Por cuanto don Mauricio Rugendas intenta visitar el territorio de la República, con el objeto de levantar planos topográficos de aquellos lugares que tuviere conveniente habiendo solicitado al efecto el correspondiente pasaporte ...Rugendas's Chilean passport issued by the President of the Republic Rugendas arrived in the port of Valparaiso in July 1834, after two years and five months travelling in Mexico. His arrival in Valparaiso coincided with that of the Beagle (Darwin had remarked on his Brazilian work when in Brazil two years earlier) and he accommodated and went on a painting tour with the Beagle's artist Conrad Martens in August before heading to Santiago to sort out the formalities of his residence and travels in the republic. 'Despues de pasar dos o tres meses en Valparaiso pintando, lo primero que hizo al llegar a la capital, fue visitar a las autoridades, en previsión de posibles equívocos. Pero no era nada fácil para un pintor en la época explicar sus actividades. No es fácil hoy dia y podemos suponer los inconvenientes que se presentarían entonces para dar a conocer la vocación del artista, rara avis en un país semicolonial como Chile, que nunca había tenido ocasión de ver un personaje semejante. Se le podía confundir con tantas cosas. … Las cosas no podían ir mejor. Acogió a Rugendas en forma amistosa, se impuso de su situación y se ofreció para ayudarlo; desde luego, lo presentó a las autoridades gubernamentales, a fin de conseguirle algunos encargos. De este momento existen algunos bocetos de actos oficiales y hechos de armas que sirvieron para cuadros que debió resultado. La llegada del Presidente Prieto a la pampilla, la batalla de Maipú, la batalla de Chacabuco, el desastre de Pangal fueron cocebidos mentalmente en este primer contacto con las esferas de Gobierno.' (T. Lago, Rugendas pintor romántico de Chile, Santiago, 1960, p.43). With this encouraging start, Rugendas integrated quickly into the intellectual and political life of Chile, helped by the more intimate and accessible nature of the country, and the presence of old friends and new, political exiles from Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela, writers, musicians, artists, botanists and statesmen, who gathered regularly in the ‘Salons’ of Santiago – they included Domingo de Oro, Juan Godoy, Juan Espinosa, Andrés Bello, Claude Gay, Isidore Segers, Mercedes Marin de Solar, Juana Toro de Vicuña, and his great love Carmen Arriagada de Gutike, whose correspondence (Mi Moro! mi único amigo! ... Dulce e tierno amor mío, caro Mauricio!) with the artist through the Chilean years survives. Rugendas made a modest living from his portraits, occasional landscape commissions and drawing classes. He attempted an album of costume studies, Trajes Populares Chilenos, which failed, just one issue of 5 sheets printed in 1838, but the project was emblematic of the shift away through these years in South America from natural history and landscape painting to drawing and the study of local culture. This shift was seen clearly in the early journey south to study the Araucanian Indians from November 1835 to March 1836 and in his series of romantic paintings on the subject of the Indian kidnaps of European women which followed his crossing the Andes into Argentina from December 1837 to April 1838. He settled in Valparaiso from May 1838, making a meagre living from views of the port and the road to Santiago, until his departure for Peru in November 1842.The Chilean works here, four painted in Valparaiso in 1842 before his departure for Peru, and presumably the artist's last great commission in Chile, are all great statements of nationhood, grand vistas which exclaim and describe the landscape and growing townscapes of the new independent republic at its outset in the second quarter of the 19th century. If they are his last commissions, they see the artist revisiting the classic sites that so enthralled the artist on arrival in Chile in 1834: 'Rugendas hatte schon Valparaiso in einer Reihe von Zeichnungen und Bildern aufgenommen. Er hatte die Hauptgebäude, die ein Grossfeuer bald darauf zum Teil vernichtete, die Strassen und Plätze, die malerische Ansicht des Hafens und die Nachbarorte am Meer zu wiederholten Malen dargestellt. Nun zeichnete er auf der Strasse nach Santiago von Zapata unter der Cuesta de Prado aus und hielt erwartungsvoll den ersten zauberhaften Blick auf die Andenkette hinter der Hauptstadt fest. Ihn fesselte bei Santiago in starker Weise die Landschaft. Gewissenhaft zeichnete er die wichtigen Gebäude, das Palais, die Ministerien, einzelne bedeutendere Kirchen, die Hauptplätze, Strassen und Vororte, doch riss ihn stets das herrliche Panorama der Stadt mit den majestätisch aufsteigenden Bergen besonders hin.' (G. Richert, Johann Moritz Rugendas, ein deutscher Maler in Ibero-Amerika, Munich, 1952, pp.69-70) PROPERTY FROM A CORPORATE COLLECTION (LOTS 142-150)The early provenance of this significant group of paintings by Rugendas is not known. It has been suggested that they may have been in the collection of Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander, Baron von Humboldt (1769-1859), the artist’s great admirer, collaborator, and patron to whom Rugendas sent paintings from Latin America. There is no evidence though to prove this, and Dr Pablo Diener has found no reference to them in the Rugendas/Humboldt correspondence, nor were they amongst the works of art sold in Berlin from Humboldt’s estate. They were offered by a J.M.Barnett (possibly a dealer) in a letter to the conservator at The Wellcome Historical Medical Museum dated ‘41 Store Street, London, W.C.1. November 20 1935’: ‘I am leaving England and settling in America, early in the New Year. I therefore take this opportunity of offering you my two Collections, if you are interested. 1. North American Indians. One of the finest collections extant, in private hands. … 2. Medicine, Science & Exploration. A very large collection of manuscript material of the famous celebrities, including 14 Peruvian painting scenes by Rugendas …’, and again to The Secretary at the museum, in a letter dated 29 February 1936: ‘May I be allowed to present the 13 paintings of South American interest to your Museum? I have just returned from New York and decided to give them away rather than sell them. … they are in my storage – New York City.’ (Wellcome Archives, WA/HMM/CO/ALP/51). They were received from New York by the Museum in May 1936 and went into storage for 34 years. The works were then sold at Sotheby’s in 1970 when they were all acquired by Agnew’s for the present corporate collection.

Johann Moritz Rugendas (1802-1858)

The arrival of President Prieto at La Pampilla

Details

Johann Moritz Rugendas (1802-1858)
The arrival of President Prieto at La Pampilla
indistinctly dated ‘183.[?]’ (lower right), titled on the frame 'Arrival of the President of Chile at La Pampilla'
oil on canvas
16 x 27 ½in. (40.7 x 69.8cm.)

Provenance

Presented by Jack M. Barnett, of 41 Store St, London W.C.1. to
The Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, London, May 1936; sale
Sotheby's, London, 14 May 1970, lot 118 (£950 to Agnew).
with Thos. Agnew & Sons (no.32540).
Corporate collection, London, since 1970.

Literature

P. Diener, Rugendas, Augsburg, 1997, CH-O-28 (Llegada del Presidente Prieto a la Pampilla), p.271.

Brought to you by

Helena Ingham

hingham@christies.com +44(0)20 7389 2046

Lot Essay

There is a larger variant (70 x 92cm.) in the Museo de Bellas Artes, Santiago de Chile (Diener, CH-O-29), for which see T. Lago, Rugendas pintor romántico de Chile, Santiago de Chile, 1960, p.79 illustrated facing p.33 and 64 (detail), the picture donated by Rugendas to the Junta in the wake of the Concepción earthquake of 20 February 1835, and the gift acknowledged in a letter of thanks from José de la Cavareda dated Santiago, 6 May 1835 (for which see T. Lago, op. cit., p.79, note 3), the variant described by Lago as in the collection of Germán Vergara Donoso in 1960. Diener dates the variant to c.1834.

Rugendas paints the celebrations held between the capital and Coquimbo, 'La Pampilla de Coquimbo', the annual national holiday which marks the foundation of the Chilean Republic on 18 September 1810, the scene dressed with the Chilean republic's flags and attended by the nation's president, his carriage kicking up dust behind the flags and massed crowds. This is one of Rugendas's early canvases painted in Chile, part of a series of works which treat historical subjects concerned with the foundation of the Chilean Republic, works which reveal the artist already closely aligned with the political (his friend Bustamente was Minister of War) and intellectual intelligensia of the nation. He has changed the topography of the scene, with the iconic Cordillera of the Andes in the background (not as it is in fact seen from La Pampilla) to underline the nationalist message. José Joaquín Prieto, a veteran of the Chilean War of Independence and Civil War of 1829, had been elected President in September 1831 and his conservative administration was the first restore law and order to the country in the wake of years of anarchy.

More from Topographical Pictures

View All