In November 1842, Johann Moritz Rugendas (Augsburg, 3/29/1802 - Weilheim, 05/29/1858) embarked from Valparaíso to Peru. The Chilean stay, which began in July 1834, was the longest of his American trip, barely interrupted by the crossing of the Andes in the summer of 1837-1838, an experience marked by the accident in San Luis, an episode of the famous novel by César Aira.[1] The main scholar of his work, Pablo Diener, points out that shortly after arriving in Lima he returned to customs matters: “he dedicates hundreds of pages to portraying the tapadas and their unique way of dressing the skirt and the mantle; […] For the first time in the Great American Voyage, Rugendas pays special attention to architecture; "He not only draws views of the urban complex, but also dedicates detailed studies to numerous buildings from colonial times." [2]
In the exhaustive inventory of the Bavarian artist's production, Diener lists the missing works of relevance. Six oil paintings - in addition to two pencil drawings - correspond to the Peruvian-Bolivian trip: When leaving the church – two covered in the middle of a crowd; The Independence Market; Walk in the Alameda, with a view of the Rímac and Lima; and two others from 1843 titled The Port of Islay and the one of interest now, Scene of a street in the center of Lima (X-11). The latter, Diener indicates, is documented photographically in the Städtische Kunstsammlungen Augsburg (SKA FII 3230 u. FI 657), a matter that suggests the possibility of its first keeping.
J. Moritz Rugendas, Walk in the Alameda, with a view of the Rimac and Lima, c. 1843.
Street scene in the center of Lima, a descriptive title, is known since 1930 for the auction of Rugendas' works by Karl W. Hiersemann, a bookseller and antiquarian based in Leipzig. The painting was cataloged and reproduced with the title Popular scene in Lima (no. 7, see images). In the introductory text of the catalog it is clarified: «The seven oil paintings offered for sale here all come from the artist's estate and are rigorously original. Although they were recently pasted on new canvas, their authenticity appears not only because three of them are signed, but also, when the paintings are placed against the light, one can still see autograph notices written by Rugendas on the back of the original canvas in some of them. "They are magnificent canvases both in the spontaneity of their execution and their warm intonation." Popular scene in Lima is among those that do not present a signature, but there is no doubt about the authorship. Given the deep German economic crisis, the sale of works of art by institutions was common; although Karl W. Hiersemann assured the buyer that he had acquired the seven paintings sold to "the heirs of Rugendas in Augsburg itself."
In the same auction is Group of South American soldiers (no. 2), later titled Return of Garibaldi after the combat of San Antonio, preserved in the Cabildo Historical Museum of Montevideo from the Octavio Assunçao collection, who had acquired it from Buenaventura Caviglia , son. According to K. W. Hiersemann's invoice, he not only bought the painting of the River Plate historical theme but also this scene of Lima customs in the possession of his descendants to this day. Both were sent together to Montevideo, in mid-July 1930.
Correspondence sent by the seller on July 19, 1930.
Buenaventura Caviglia, Jr. (1879-1950) was a well-known writer of etymological and folkloric themes; His books include The etymology of the name Montevideo (Montevideo: El Siglo Ilustrado, 1925), Gaucho de garrucho (Montevideo: El Siglo Ilustrado, 1933) and La Cantramilla. Rio de la Plata gaucho folklore (Montevideo: Uruguayan Printer, 1947). In the National Magazine he published Discurso en Lima, 1942. [3] Married to Hilda Cámpora, they had four children.
The Caviglia family was one of the most relevant of the Italian immigration in Uruguay, with the arrival of Buonaventura in 1869 to join his two emigrated brothers, dedicated to carpentry. From the Caviglia Furniture Store he expanded into banking and agricultural businesses, including wine production. Buonaventura Caviglia had another prominent son in Uruguayan history: Luis Carlos (1874-1951), an important politician and minister of the Colorado Party and director of the newspaper La Defensa.[4]
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José Flores Araoz suggests that Scene on a street in the center of Lima makes a pendant with Scene on San Pedro Street,[5] another of Hiersemann's oil paintings auctioned with the same title of Scene popular in Lima (n. 5), In the background of which the Torre Tagle mansion is represented, which is why it is also known as The Torre Tagle Palace in Lima. (Diener, P-O.15), currently at Banco Itaú, São Paulo. Both paintings have the same measurements. Must be added to the sequence, the largest oil painting -68 x 92 cm- The Cathedral and the Plaza Mayor of Lima, seen from Mantas Street (La Plaza Mayor de Lima, Diener, P-O.16), private Mexican collection . The central group, in the motley crowd (three covered ones, the black servant with the carpet for the temple, and the priest), is the same one seen in front of the Torre Tagle Palace in the indicated painting.
A street scene in the center of Lima presents variation in the brushstrokes, sometimes following the figure, at other times placing the color in a pasty way or with a low load of matter, almost diluted, in figures from removed planes. Thus, it presents its own character expressed in the smallest detail than the larger Lima paintings, also with the advantage of the smaller number of figures. In this way, along with pictorial richness, it presents a feeling of spontaneity, almost as if it were a sketch executed outdoors. On the contrary, in The Cathedral and Plaza Mayor of Lima... the faces have been painted with the precision of the portrait,[6] in a composition painting; just as it happens in other great costumbrista scenes, although in a more mitigated way, such as Paseo in the Alameda Nueva, El Mercado de la Independencia in Lima, Baños in Chorrillos, Fiesta San Juan in Amancaes that belonged, since 1970, to the Baring Brothers corporate collection until the 2016 auction (Christie's, London).
The previous study
The drawing Portals of the Plaza Mayor and Calle de las Mantas is the study of the architectural setting of the traditional scene: the portals of Botoneros and Escribanos, and Calle de las Mantas, with a view of the height of the house with the merchant's viewpoint Juan Miguel de Castañeda.[7] The relationship between drawing and painting was pointed out by Flores Araoz, and reiterated in the inventory by Diener [A corner of Mantas Street near the Plaza Mayor in Lima. SGS.16796. PB-D.119]. This drawing, initialized, has the inscription “Lima. April 18, 1844.” Diener dates Street Scene in Downtown Lima to sometime between 1843 and 1844, but the date of the drawing must be considered the early time limit for its execution.
The architecture captured in oil painting, here in a previous study, dated 1844. José Flores Aráoz, El Perú romantic del 19th century, Lima, 1975.
In the painting, the representation of architecture occupies the upper two thirds of the composition, highlighting the projecting balconies painted verdigris. The viewer enters the painting following with their gaze the trot of the horse of the caped traveler, with the corresponding pack mule, seen from behind. The delicate representation of the movement, begun in the horse's tail and legs in the air - it subtly stops to clearly represent the spurs, as if to indicate that the pace of the walk will immediately increase - to continue with the slight inclination of the rider's body. The route stops in the center of the canvas with the presence of a similar motif, especially when a train of llamas comes out to meet it. The sewer [8] with the three black buzzards underlines a diagonal, which converges at the intersection of streets, where there is a little more gray daylight, usual in Lima, which allows the artist to draw some blue brushstrokes to resolve the shadows.
With mastery of composition, Rugendas opens spaces for details to be captured: on the Escribanos portal the poster announcing the performance of Romeo and Juliet with Rossi and Pantanelli. «I Capuleti ed i Montecchi by Bellini, was presented in Lima as Romeo and Juliet and became the first premiere and great success of the season; It reached 12 performances in 5 months. In Bellini's work - immersed in the style of romanticism with its loving and melancholic arias - the role of Romeo is assigned to a contralto. The supporters of the soprano Teresa Rossi (Juliet) competed with those of the contralto Clorinda Corradi Pantanelli (Romeo), and although this rivalry was less bloody than the one between the Capulets and the Montagues, it gave rise to true pitched battles in the theater and the most hostile attitudes of one side against the singer opposed to their favorite, very much in the style of the Paris opera.»[9] Did the street poster of the great bel canto season 1840-1842 persist? Perhaps, a tribute to the singers with whom he had exchanged correspondence, since the lyrical company had moved to Santiago de Chile in 1843. [10] The same poster, more legible, is found in The Cathedral and the Plaza Mayor of Lima, seen from Mantas Street. In both, another sign is added to the front portal, but, in this case, bullfighting. Thus, it refers to two spectacles of Lima society, in that constant intersection of the popular with the bourgeois of its traditional scenes.
By reducing the size of the figures to give a greater sense of space, they are hidden, some barely outlined, plus a carriage. On the left side, under the Botoneros portal, the animated group of friars, knights, covered and black, plus another gentleman with a cape who advances from the portal towards the street, where a peasant woman remains seated, stands out.
Fifteen years before Flores Araoz did it, Scene from a street in the center of Lima was described by Tomás Lago: «The chroniclers of Lima's past often reproduce their paintings with scenes of customs. Among the best known is one that represents the corner of the Plaza de Armas, Calle de Mercaderes and Mantas, an open pit ditch - among whose detritus some buzzards lounge - passes in front of Botoneros, on the corner a sign announces a bullfight. . In front on the corner of Escribanos another sign invites you to the theatrical performance. You can see under the projecting balconies built in the 17th century by the viceroy Portocarrero, Count of Monclava, the typical characters of the time, street vendors, friars, ladies in skirts and cloaks. It's Lima." [11]
These views on costumbrismo as a descriptive representation of Lima's reality acquired a diverse aspect in the readings of contemporary Peruvian intellectuals such as Alberto Flores Galindo and Gonzalo Portocarrero, who found in Rugendas the validity of the hypothesis about a divided society, fractured by hierarchization. inherited from the colonial ideal. Position that Rafael Sagredo Baeza recently summarized well: «Rugendas would have only executed a gallery of individual portraits in Lima, not of social types, each one of them being a singularity in the midst of a diverse and disintegrated group, a forceful example of the weakness of the collective links that barely offer an example of fragmented stories. [12]
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After two years of portraying Lima life, visiting towns in Peru, particularly Cuzco and Arequipa, and Bolivia - with special interest in the pre-Hispanic and colonial past - he embarked in January 1845 to make the journey across the Pacific, stopping in Valparaíso to then cross the Strait of Magellan towards Buenos Aires and Montevideo, the final stage of his journey that began with his arrival in Veracruz in 1831. After a month in Rio de Janeiro, in August 1846, he returned to Europe with American paintings and drawings. , among the first was Popular scene of the streets of Lima.
Notes:
[1] Studies on Rugendas in Chile have been revitalized with new approaches in collective works: Pablo Diener (introduction) Rugendas in the Republic. Santiago: Center for Public Studies, 2023; Pablo Diener and María de Fátima Costa (coordinators). Rugendas: the traveling artist. Santiago: National Library of Chile, 2021.
[2] Pablo Diener. Rugendas. 1802-1858. Augsburg: Wissner, 1997, p. 51.
[3] The Buenaventura Caviglia (h) library was acquired by the National Library of Montevideo in 1956.
[4] For Luis C. Caviglia, see Gerardo Caetano. Conservative liberalism. Genealogies. Montevideo: Banda Oriental Editions, 2021.
[5] José Flores Araoz. “Presence of Rugendas in Peru.” Juan Mauricio Rugendas. Romantic Peru of the 19th century. Lima: Carlos Milla Batres, 1975, p. 43. The work is reproduced in black and white, plate 57, page. 148. A detail was even used for the design of the withdrawal sheets. The heading indicates “unknown whereabouts.” Without a doubt, his appearance in Montevideo is a surprise.
[6] About Rugendas portraitist: Christof Trepesch. “On the portrait art of Juan Mauricio Rugendas.” Chile and Juan Mauricio Rugendas. (exp. cat.) National Museum of Fine Arts, Santiago de Chile, Kunstsammlungen und Museen de Augsburg, 2007, pp. 37-47. About technique: Franziska Butze-Rios and Katrin Holzherr. “Juan Mauricio Rugendas's oil studies under the magnifying glass: observations on artistic technique.” Diener and Costa, op. cit., pp. 103-137.
[7] Flores Araoz, op. cit., p. 43.
[8] Wastewater outlet conduit or channel.
[9] José Quezada Macchiavello. “Review of an interrupted function: The opera in Lima during the first century of the Republic”, Lienzo, Revista de la Universidad de Lima, number 16, 1995), pp. 143-144.
[10] In 1845 the Marchegian contralto was portrayed in the role of Norma by Raymond Quinsac Monvoisin and Clara Filleul. Her relationship with Pantanelli, Rossi and the members of the company is recounted by Tomás Lago. Rugendas. Romantic painter from Chile. Santiago: Editions of the University of Chile, 1960, pp.131-135 and 143. Also by Flores Araoz, op. Cit., pp. 32-34.
[11] Lake, op. cit., p. 129.
[12] Rafael Sagredo Baeza. “A patriotic scene. Rugendas in Chile”. Diener and Costa, op. cit. p. 96.
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