Lot 96: Jean-Baptiste Louis Gros (1793?-1870)

Jean-Baptiste Louis Gros (1793?-1870)
View of Patzcuaro
oil on paper laid down on canvas
11¼ x 14½ in. 28.4 x 36.5 cm.

Private collection, France.

The colonization of Brazil by Portugal in 1808 opened Latin America to various European diplomatic missions throughout the nineteenth century, as well as the arrival of naval officers, merchants, adventurers, explorers and diplomats. There were also many artists who came, drawn by the pioneering work of Baron von Humbolt (1769-1859), who led a large scientific expedition from 1799 to 1804 through Spanish America -- today's Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, México and Cuba. The famous German explorer predicted that landscape painting would be reborn 'in all its splendour, a splendour never yet beheld', as soon as talented artists could cross the Atlantic and 'capture the energy of nature's multiple aspects in the lush valleys of the tropical world'.

Jean-Baptiste Louis Gros was one such artist. Having taken up a diplomatic career at a young age, and after having been posted to Lisbon and Egypt, he was nominated First Secretary of the French legation in Mexico in 1831. This post, held from 1831 to 1836, was the first and longest stage of his South American sojourn, before he moved on to Brazil (1836?-1838) and Colombia (1838-1842).

The painter-explorers of the time, Thomas Daniel Egerton, Johann Moritz Rugendas and other lesser known artists translated the landscapes, types and costumes of these new lands onto canvas or paper according to Von Humbolt's orders. Gros followed their example; although a diplomat by profession, he executed many landscapes for his own pleasure, which he has left as testament to his South American years.

Manuel Romero de Terreros's recorded fourteen Mexican views by Gros (Le baron Gros et ses vues sur le Mexique, México, 1953, pp. 10-12). All are oil on canvas, twelve of them measuring forty-seven by thirty-one centimetres and all painted in México, where, on several occasions, he travelled through the states of Veracruz, Puebla, México, Morelos and Guerrero amongst others.

This newly discovered view of the surroundings of Pátzcuaro, of slightly smaller dimensions than the others, adds to the oeuvre of an artist who is celebrated today. Distinguished by the freshness of the colors and the freedom of the brushstrokes, this view expresses the author's amazement before a paradise of unspoilt nature. Pátzcuaro, the name given to a lake and a small Mexican town at the lake's edge, is situated in the Michoacán region in the South of México and to the West of the Popocatéeptl, where Gros took part in a crater-climbing expedition in the company of Daniel Thomas Egerton in 1834. Pátzcuaro, or 'place of stones' in local dialect was considered to be the Eden of Michoacán. It was traditionally a place of worship in the 'cues' (temples) and was always celebrated for the beauty of its surroundings.

Although he had received no academic training in painting, and is no longer thought to have been a son of Baron Gros, Jean-Baptiste Louis Gros showed an immense interest for the arts throughout his life. He was acknowledged by his contemporaries for a daguerreotype of the Acropolis (he was one of the first artists to work in the new medium); today he is also revered for his paintings which, until recent years, remained largely unknown.