Details

Subject(s)

• Indigenous peoples of Mexico—First contact with other peoples [Browse]
• Mexico—Conquest, 1519-1540—Pictorial works [Browse]
• Indigenous Studies [Browse]

Former owner

• Ramírez, José Fernando, 1804-1871 [Browse]
• Gates, William, 1863-1940 [Browse]

Donor

Garrett, Robert, 1875-1961 [Browse]

Getty AAT genre

• Watercolors (paintings)—Mexico—19th century [Browse]
• manuscripts (documents) [Browse]

Contained in

• Robert Garrett collection, ca. 1340 B.C.-1900s.

Compiled/​Created

[1855].

Medium/​Support

17 sheets of watercolor drawings on paper (ca. 419 x 254 mm.), mounted on a sheet of cloth in two horizontal rows of eight each with the final sheet sideways at the right end, forming a panel (3887 x 1041 mm.).

Linking notes

Forms part of the Robert Garrett Collection (C0744).

Summary note

The manuscript is a partial copy of the original "Mapa de Cuauhtlantzinco," which details the reception by Hernan Cortes by a native Mexican chieftan on his way towards the Conquest of the capital, Mexico. Several of the sheets are portraits of native chiefs, with their names. Text on a number of pictures in Nahuatl.

Original version

The original had two parts: 1) a panel containing 27 scenes and 29 numbered Nahuatl texts arranged in three horizontal rows and 2) a smaller panel containing 17 scenes and 12 numbers but without Nahuatl texts. This manuscript is a watercolor copy of the smaller panel and its 17 scenes are mounted in the same order and bear the same numbers (blank, 30, 23, 21, blank, 11, 7, 33, 6, blank, blank, 31, 2, blank, 32, 9, 24). Eleven or 13 of the scenes on the smaller panel are copies or duplicates of scenes on the larger panel. The four large heads designated by the numbers 30-33, however, are not duplicated on the larger panel.

Language note

Text in Nahuatl.

Provenance

Copy of the original which was known to have existed in a small town in Mexico, from immediately after the Conquest but later damaged by fire and since disappeared entirely; according to Gates the original was sent to Mexico City where the present copy was made, and then returned, after which the fire occured; previously part of the Jose Fernando Ramirez Collection (Bibliotheca Mexicana, 1880: no. 540); it was sent to Europe with the rest of the Mexican manuscripts and books of Ramirez and autioned in Paris; later purchased by Quaritch and listed in two catalogs issued by that dealer (Quatritch, 1880: no 176 and Quaritch, 1885: no. 29045); this copy was acquired by Gates and sold to Robert Garrett in 1930; it was not included in the manuscripts deposited by Robert Garrett in the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in 1942 but was brought by him to the Princeton University Library in 1949.

Source acquisition

Gift; Robert Garrett; 1949.

Cite as

Garrett-Gates Mesoamerican Manuscripts, no. 258a, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

In

Robert Garrett Collection, ca. 1340 B.C.-1900s

OCLC

84278538

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