Picture

Details

Descriptive Terms

pictures (two-dimensional representations)
engraving (printing process)
paper (fiber product)
Unidentified Paper
Stipple Engraved
PICTURE

Label

Created in the mid-nineteenth century by a French engraver known as Codoni, this lithograph depicts a romanticized and idealized European portrayal of members from the Inca Empire engaged in a ritual dedicated to the sun god, Inti.

The print's inscription describes the scene as Incan people from the so-called "New World" in the process of ritualized worship to the sun. However, the lithograph's imagery does not accurately portray the Inca. Instead, it reflects the imaginations and exoticized, fictional perceptions of pre-colonial Peru from European Enlightenment thinkers and artists. For example, the three figures at the forefront of the scene are depicted as wearing clothing and accessories
adorned with feathers and tasseled fringe, which were appropriate for members of Inca nobility -- yet Codoni's depiction fused these traditional qualities with the draped, loose-fitting attire and sandals of ancient Greece and Rome. Further additions of classical Western artifacts added by the artist are the metal braziers on either side of the central figures and the railing located behind them. Ancient Greece and Rome became significant sources of inspiration for Enlightenment thinkers in France, and the influence of their aesthetics in the lithograph reflects the Enlightenment's captivation with both ancient civilizations' art, philosophical ideas, and politics.

To provide the viewer with historical context for the depiction, the inscription further details a pseudohistorical account of Spain's colonization of Peru and the region's fight for independence in the 1800s. The lithograph's transcription of these events reflects a politically charged fascination with pre-Hispanic Peru and the Inca Empire throughout France, known as péruvienophilie. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Enlightenment thinkers, such as Voltaire and Rousseau, framed the Inca a s an 'ideal' empire and condemned Spain's colonization of the region throughout their critiques of France's tumultuous political climate and social conditions. Although Voltaire and other French Enlightenment thinkers vilified the Spanish conquest, they provided no reflection or commentary on France's own colonial expansion and imperialism in Africa and Asia during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Ultimately, these sentiments demonstrate the politically charged undertone of péruvienophilie and the complex relationship 'Enlightened' France had with other European countries' colonies.

Regardless, péruvienophilie spread throughout France and inspired the creation and proliferation of romanticized imagery of the Incas throughout the fine, decorative, and commercial arts. Throughout the nineteenth century, fantasies of pre-Hispanic Peru found their way into decorative arts in the form of wallpapers, porcelain figures, lithographs, and printed fabrics. Codoni's lithograph is an example of the manufactured, romanticized colonial fantasies designed to enchant the burgeoning upper-middle class of France in the early nineteenth century. Inspired by novels such as Jean-François Marmontel's Les Incas, ou la destruction de l'empire du Perou (The Incas, or the Destruction of Peru's Empire) (1777), decorative arts reinforced exoticism and brought romanticized idealisms of the Inca Empire into the home. These narratives of the Inca focused significantly on the ritualized worship of the sun--a central point in Codoni's lithograph and the opening narrative of Marmontel's novel.

Located in the North Gallery of Beauport, the lithograph resides among Henry Davis Sleeper's curated selection of other decorative works that share the designated theme of patriotism and
the birth of a new nation.

Inscription

"AMERIQUE"

Associated Building

Original to Beauport, Sleeper-McCann House (Gloucester, Mass.),

Maker

Codoni (Engraver)

Location of Origin

Paris, France

Dimensions

11.25 x 14.125 x 0.625 (HxWxD) (inches)

Credit Line

Gift of Constance McCann Betts, Helena Woolworth Guest and Frasier W. McCann

Accession Number

1942.4625