Lot 415: Anthony Meucci (Italian, late 18th/early 19th c.,

Anthony Meucci (Italian, late 18th/early 19th c., active New Orleans, 1818-1827), "Portrait of Pascuala Concepción Muñoz Castrillón, mother of José Maria Córdoba, Hero of Ayacucho", c. 1830, gouache on ivory miniature, signed "A. Meucci, Pinxet" lower left, 3 1/2 in. x 2 1/2 in., in an ornate period hand-carved wood frame. Provenance: Descended in the family of the sitter. Note: This large and impressive miniature represents the mother of the celebrated hero of the Wars for Independence of Colombia, Jose Maria Cordoba. It was painted when Meucci left New Orleans for Havana and the Colombian coast, where he arrived in 1830 It is enlivened by a view of the sea, and may have been painted with reference to Pascuala's surviving house in Barbosa (the province of Antigua has a brief area of coastline). Two of the most impressive of Meucci's works on paper--a Washington and a Lafayette--were sold in Neal Auction Company's salerooms on December 3, 2005.