Lot 51: DANIEL THOMAS EGERTON (1797-1842)

A VIEW OF AGUAS CALIENTES, MEXICO

measurements
29 by 39 1/2 in.

alternate measurements
(74 by 100.3 cm)

oil on canvas

signed and dated 1839 lower right

PROVENANCE

Private Collection, England
Sale: Sotheby's, London, The Travel Sale, Natural History and Maps, November 15, 2001, lot 130, illustrated in color

NOTE

English painter Daniel Tomas Egerton was one of the early traveler painters who visited Mexico, arriving in 1830. He spent five years traveling throughout Mexico depicting the country and its people. Many of these "Costumbrista" works have become an important part of Mexico's history.

Egerton is perhaps best known for the portfolio of lithographs entitled Egerton's Views in Mexico which was published in London on July 1st, 1840. The portfolio included twelve large colored images of his travels and became extremely popular, and remains so to this day. The painting offered here, Aguascalientes, is the basis for the print Plan del Rio- Marcha de la conducta.

Aguascalientes depicts a resting stop for travelers about 40 kilometers inland on the road from Vera Cruz to Mexico City. The scene depicts the long mule train accompanied by a military escort carrying silver pesos to the coast -- the "conducta". Each mule carried two boxes of silver pesos, containing about 3,000 coins per box. Silver was one of the great riches of Mexico and had been exported since the Conquest.

Egerton was so enamored by Mexico that he returned in 1840 with his companion Agnes Edwards, settling in Tacubaya, outside the capital. The couple was tragically killed by bandits in 1842 which brought an early and abrupt halt to the career of one of Mexico's best nineteenth-century chroniclers.