Lot Essay
Baron Jean-Baptiste Louis Gros was the son of Baron Jean-Antoine Gros, the neo-classical painter and pupil of David. After diplomatic service in Lisbon and Egypt, Gros was appointed First Secretary to the French Legation in Mexico and arrived there in February 1832. He left Mexico in 1836 for service in Brazil and Colombia (where he also painted) and in his later career was appointed Ambassador to China in 1857 and to London in 1862.
M. Romero de Terreros listed just thirteen Mexican oils by Gros in 1953 (M. Romero de Terros, El Baron Gros y Sus Vistas de Mexico, Mexico, 1953) not including the present picture and all, with one exception, of similar dimension, and allies his work with that of his famous contemporaries in Mexico, Egerton and Rugendas: 'Era la época en que el inglés Thomas Daniel Egerton, el alemán Juan Moritz Rugendas y otros de menor cuantia transladaban al lienzo o el papel, paisages, tipos y costumbres de México; y Gros, in tardo ni perezozo, siguio su ejemplo; pero sus cuadros, a diferencia de los de sus dos contemporáneos, que daron, hasta hace poco, punto menos que desconocidos.'
The classic Teotihuacan culture flourished in Mexico from 150 BC to AD 750: 'By AD 600 Teotihuacan had become a great metropolis dominating the political, economic and religious life of the central highlands of Mexico. With over 100,000 inhabitants it was the largest urban centre in the Americas and the sixth most populous city in the world at that time. The formal grid plan which governed the layout of the city was based on an east-west axis keyed to horizon observations of the sun and the star constellation known to us as the Pleiades. An impressive three-mile-long ritual avenue traversed the city from north to south, leading to the Pyramid of the Moon. Arranged on either side of the avenue were plazas, palace compounds and apartment complexes, all overshadowed by the imposing bulk of the Pyramid of the Sun. The surrounding residential quarters supported enclaves of foreign merchants and artisans from Veracruz and the Oaxaca Valley, and in return Teotihuacan sent its own trading and religious emissaries to far-flung sites such as Matacapan on the Gulf Coast and Kaminaljuyu and Tikal in Maya territory.' (C. McEwan, Ancient Mexico in the British Museum, London 1994, p. 55)
M. Romero de Terreros listed just thirteen Mexican oils by Gros in 1953 (M. Romero de Terros, El Baron Gros y Sus Vistas de Mexico, Mexico, 1953) not including the present picture and all, with one exception, of similar dimension, and allies his work with that of his famous contemporaries in Mexico, Egerton and Rugendas: 'Era la época en que el inglés Thomas Daniel Egerton, el alemán Juan Moritz Rugendas y otros de menor cuantia transladaban al lienzo o el papel, paisages, tipos y costumbres de México; y Gros, in tardo ni perezozo, siguio su ejemplo; pero sus cuadros, a diferencia de los de sus dos contemporáneos, que daron, hasta hace poco, punto menos que desconocidos.'
The classic Teotihuacan culture flourished in Mexico from 150 BC to AD 750: 'By AD 600 Teotihuacan had become a great metropolis dominating the political, economic and religious life of the central highlands of Mexico. With over 100,000 inhabitants it was the largest urban centre in the Americas and the sixth most populous city in the world at that time. The formal grid plan which governed the layout of the city was based on an east-west axis keyed to horizon observations of the sun and the star constellation known to us as the Pleiades. An impressive three-mile-long ritual avenue traversed the city from north to south, leading to the Pyramid of the Moon. Arranged on either side of the avenue were plazas, palace compounds and apartment complexes, all overshadowed by the imposing bulk of the Pyramid of the Sun. The surrounding residential quarters supported enclaves of foreign merchants and artisans from Veracruz and the Oaxaca Valley, and in return Teotihuacan sent its own trading and religious emissaries to far-flung sites such as Matacapan on the Gulf Coast and Kaminaljuyu and Tikal in Maya territory.' (C. McEwan, Ancient Mexico in the British Museum, London 1994, p. 55)