Late eighteenth-century depictions of Peruvian primates in the Codex Martínez Compañón and the Quadro de la Historia Natural Civil y Geográfica del Reyno del Perú (2024)
Urbani, Bernardo (Author)
Eckhard W. Heymann (Author)
Archives of Natural History
Volume: 51
Issue: 1
Pages: 146-170
King Carlos III of Spain supported numerous scientific and intellectual enterprises in Spanish America during the eighteenth century. One was the compilation, between about 1782 and 1785, of a vast ‘paper museum’, the ‘Codex Martínez Compañón’ or ‘Codex Trujillo del Perú’, in the province of Trujillo, Peru. There, the Bishop of Trujillo, Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañón, directed the preparation of hundreds of coloured illustrations of the people, geography and natural history of the region. Included were 17 images of mammals classified as primates from Peruvian forests. In 1789, this compilation was shipped to Madrid where some of these illustrations were copied into an impressive oil painting by Louis Thiébaut under the direction of the bishop’s nephew, José Ignacio de Lecuanda. This painting, the Quadro de la Historia Natural Civil y Geográfica del Reyno del Perú (1799), not only included images of almost a dozen primates, but also accompanying descriptions. Forming part of an unusually large painting, these depictions of New World primates served as channels for ideas about exoticism and potential European initiatives in the forested regions of Spanish America before independence. This paper discusses the identification of the primates and some other mammals portrayed in both Martínez Compañón’s Codex and in the Quadro del Perú of Lecuanda and Thiébaut.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Thesis
Berquist, Emily Kay;
(2007)
The Science of Empire: Bishop Martinez Companon and the Enlightenment in Peru
(/isis/citation/CBB001560532/)
Article
Bernardo Urbani;
(2020)
The Seven Secluded Monkeys of Conrad Gessner
(/isis/citation/CBB955450628/)
Book
Schmutz, Hans-Konrad;
(2000)
Die Tarsiiformes: Ihre Entdeckung und Entschleierung zwischen 1700 und 1850
(/isis/citation/CBB000430103/)
Article
Ethan S. Rogers;
Stephanie L. Canington;
(2021)
Lemurs before Lemur: Depictions of captive lemurs prior to Linnaeus
(/isis/citation/CBB573428884/)
Article
Silvia Sebastiani;
(2019)
A ‘Monster with Human Visage’: The Orangutan, Savagery, and the Borders of Humanity in the Global Enlightenment
(/isis/citation/CBB296727781/)
Chapter
Pimentel, Juan;
(2009)
Across Nations and Ages: The Creole Collector and the Many Lives of the Megatherium
(/isis/citation/CBB000954200/)
Book
Nieto Olarte, Mauricio;
(2000)
Remedios Para el Imperio: Historia Natural y la Apropriación del Nuevo Mundo
(/isis/citation/CBB000100277/)
Article
Myers, Charles W.;
Stothers, Richard B.;
(2006)
The Myth of Hylas Revisited: The Frog Name Hyla and Other Commentary on Specimen Medicum of J. N. Laurenti, the “Father of Herpetology”
(/isis/citation/CBB000772488/)
Article
Edwin D. Rose;
(2018)
Specimens, Slips and Systems: Daniel Solander and the Classification of Nature at the World's First Public Museum, 1753–1768
(/isis/citation/CBB076326273/)
Article
Galloway, David J.;
(2013)
Olof Swartz's Contributions to Lichenology, 1781--1811
(/isis/citation/CBB001252591/)
Book
Eddy, Matthew D.;
(2008)
The Language of Mineralogy: John Walker, Chemistry and the Edinburgh Medical School, 1750--1800
(/isis/citation/CBB000951069/)
Article
Andrew Cooper;
(2020)
Kant's universal conception of natural history
(/isis/citation/CBB971654215/)
Article
Funk, Holger;
(2012)
Towards Bibliographical Accuracy: A Clarification of Some Obscure References in Linnaeus's Musa Cliffortiana (1736)
(/isis/citation/CBB001251355/)
Essay Review
Oldroyd, David;
(2011)
Mineralogy, Chemistry, Botany, Medicine, Geology, Agriculture, Meteorology, Classification,…: The Life and Times of John Walker (1730--1803), Professor of Natural History at Edinburgh University
(/isis/citation/CBB001566752/)
Chapter
Chiara Conterno;
(2024)
Ulisse Aldrovandi e i viaggiatori tedeschi del Settecento
(/isis/citation/CBB581466113/)
Article
David Lowther;
(2016)
Preliminary analysis of the Hodgson Collection at the Zoological Society of London
(/isis/citation/CBB336255525/)
Book
Bevilacqua, Fabio;
Fregonese, Lucio;
(2000)
Nuova Voltiana: Studies on Volta and His Times. Volume 2
(/isis/citation/CBB000110617/)
Book
O'Malley, Therese;
Meyers, Amy R. W.;
(2008)
The Art of Natural History: Illustrated Treatises and Botanical Paintings, 1400--1850
(/isis/citation/CBB000830825/)
Article
Nickelsen, Kärin;
(2006)
“In deutlichen Beschreibungen und richtigen Zeichnungen gemeinnütziger” -- Abbildungen in der Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin (GNF), 1773--1800
(/isis/citation/CBB000933669/)
Article
LoTufo, Ilaria;
(2003)
Images of the Natural (and Social) Universe in Rétif De La Bretonne's La Découverte australe
(/isis/citation/CBB000340803/)
Be the first to comment!