Couvent de Ste Claire, à Lima

Location

Country: Peru
City: Lima
Place: British Embassy

French admiral Auguste-Nicolas Vaillant led a voyage in the corvette (small warship) ‘La Bonite’ from 1836 to 1837, during which time he cruised the Pacific and Indian Oceans chiefly to protect French merchant and whaling-vessels. However, it was also a scientific expedition and Vaillant carried on board the naturalists Joseph Fortuné Theodore Eydoux and François Louis Auguste Souleyet, French naval officer and watercolourist Théodore-Auguste Fisquet and watercolourist Barthélémy Lauvergne.

‘La Bonite’ visited Brazil, Uruguay, Chile and Peru, before crossing the Pacific to the China coast. The two artists provided botanical illustrations for the scientists and also produced topographical views of the locations they visited. Accounts of the circumnavigation and the scientific findings were issued in several volumes under the title ‘Voyage autour du monde execute pendant les annees 1836 et 1837 sur la corvette La Bonite’ and included over 100 plates after drawings by Fisquet, Lauvergne and others.

As a young man French naval officer and watercolourist Theodore-Auguste Fisquet accompanied the expedition of French admiral Auguste Nicolas Vaillant. Although the chief aim of the voyage was to protect French merchant and whaling-vessels, it was also a scientific expedition. A number of Fisquet’s resulting drawings were reproduced in lithograph in the published account of the voyage, ‘Voyage autour du monde execute pendant les annees 1836 et 1837 sur la corvette La Bonite’. The publication included over 100 plates after drawings by Fisquet and others. Later, Fisquet became an Admiral in the French navy. His died at Fort Robinson, northwest Nebraska, on 11 January 1890.

Places

South America, Peru, Lima

Subjects

topography, townscape/cityscape, donkey, hill, man, basket, cross, road, house, convent

Materials & Techniques

lithograph, coloured lithograph

Artist

Theodore Auguste Fisquet (1813 - 1890)
Émile Isidore Deroy (1820 - 1846)

Title

Couvent de Ste Claire, à Lima

Date

published 1841-1852

Medium

Coloured lithograph

Acquisition

Purchased from Spink & Son, November 1950

GAC number

1187