The Valley of Mexico

Daniel Thomas Egerton, a founder member of the Society of British Artists, exhibited in London from 1824. The date of his arrival in Mexico is not known, but he is first recorded there in 1834, when he visited Popocatépetl, a volcano 70 km southeast of Mexico City. Egerton later travelled through America and, in 1840, briefly returned to England, where he had a wife and children. He published twelve colour lithographs of views of Mexico with descriptive texts before returning to the country, accompanied by a woman named Agnes Edwards. Egerton and Edwards lived together in Tacubaya, now part of Mexico City but then in the country. In April 1842, as the couple were walking with their dog, they were attacked by ruffians and murdered.

Places

Mexico

Subjects

horseback, topography, landscape C19th, genre, plant, grass, tree, palm, dog, horse, donkey, mountain, river, valley, Mexican, man, Native/Central American, military uniform, flag, soldier, house

Materials & Techniques

canvas, oil, oil painting

Artist

Daniel Thomas Egerton (c.1800 - 1842)

Title

The Valley of Mexico

Date

1837

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

height: 131.00 cm, width: 185.00 cm

Acquisition

Presented by Lord Wakefield, 1936

Provenance

Commissioned by businessman Simon McGillivray (1783-1840); by descent to Mary Louisa Dawkins (née McGillivray; 1840-1897); by whose executors, sold in 1897; purchased in 1935 by oil industrialist and philanthropist Charles Cheers Wakefield, first Viscount Wakefield (1859-1941); by whom presented to the British Legation, Mexico in 1936

GAC number

0/55