Pietro Gualdi
Pietro Gualdi, aka Pedro Gualdi (22 July 1808 – 4 January 1857), was an Italian-born artist, panorama painter, architect and lithographer who was active in Mexico City from 1838 to about 1851, and in New Orleans from about 1851 to 1857.
In Mexico
He was born in
He "created precise renditions of major monuments and urban spaces what are not about exotic strangeness but instead emphasize the capital's grandeur and order."[2] In 1841 he produced a valuable historical document in the form of a book of lithographs titled "Monumentos de Mejico, tomados del natural y litografiados por Pedro Gualdi pintor de perspectiva obsequio a los señores abonados", lithographed and published by Agustín Massé and Jean Decaen Callejon. The thirteen plates portrayed the 'Catedral', 'Plaza de So. Domingo y Aduana', 'Exterior de Na. Sa. de Guadalupe', 'Interior de la Universidad', 'Interior de la Mineria', 'Colegio de Mineria', 'Interior de Catedral', 'Santuario de Na. Sa. de Guadalupe', 'Paseo de la Independencia', 'Patio del convento de Na, S. de la Merced', 'Camara de los Diputados' and the 'Casa Municipal'. The book proved so popular that a second revised edition was published in 1841–42. In 1842 he produced an oil painting panorama of Mexico City that resulted in four lithographs of the city as seen from the tower of the church of St. Augustine. He made sketches and paintings of U.S. troops entering Mexico City in the War of 1846–48.
During the Mexican–American War Gualdi's work was copied by some U.S. publishers, both to help the war effort and for profit, a view of the Military College at Chapultepec and a bird's-eye view of the Zócalo of Mexico City having military value. Gualdi worked with Agustín Massé, J. Decaen, and Michaud on the ca. 1851 "Album Pintoresco de la República Mexicana".[3][4]
In New Orleans
Gualdi seems to have moved to New Orleans by December 1851, where in March 1854 he displayed his sweeping panorama of the city. It was an oil painting measuring 20 by 128 feet, shown in an octagonal building designed by Gualdi himself and located at the corner of St. Charles and Poydras Streets. He had worked on the panorama from January to March 1853, using the lofty tower of St. Patrick's Church as a vantage point. Newspapers hailed the painting that showed some ten miles of surrounding countryside and depicted the buildings of the city “with wonderful accuracy.” The
References
- ^ James Oles, art and Architecture in Mexico. London: Thames & Hudson, 2013, p. 181.
- ^ Oles, Mexican Art and Architecture, p. 181.
- ^ Dorothy Sloan Books
- ^ "Pioneer Photographers from the Mississippi to the Continental Divide: A Biographical Dictionary, 1839-1865" - Peter E. Palmquist, Thomas R. Kailbourn
- ^ First Presbyterian Church of New Orleans: Its Buildings and Its Ministers by Samuel Wilson, Jr, F.A.I.A (1988) p. 31
- ^ Augusta Chronicle
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