Uxmal: House of the Dwarf and House of the Nuns
Description:
A view of the ruins of Uxmal depicts the House of the Nuns (on the left) and the House of the Dwarf (on the right). The House of the Nuns is a short, wide, one-story building with a series of small windows and an arched entryway, while the House of the Dwarf is a large, pyramid temple structure. Two figures stand between the two buildings. Trees and small bushes grow over the buildings, the House of the Dwarf in particular, which also has a portion of its side broken away to reveal the interior structure.
Copyright:
Copyright 2009, Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Accession Number:
F 1432 S883 1841 Vol. 2
Height (in centimeters):
10
Width (in centimeters):
18
Printing Context
House of the Dwarf and House of the Nuns is one of many illustrations of Uxmal’s monuments produced by Catherwood, all of which are reproduced in John Lloyd Stephens's Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatán (1841).Associated Events
Stephens and Catherwood’s Journey to UxmalAssociated Places
UxmalAssociated Texts
While all of Catherwood’s Uxmal drawings are reproduced in Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatán, Volume I eight of the twenty-five color lithographs that make up his Views of Ancient Monuments in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan (1844) were of Uxmal (Plates VIII-XV, in order): General View of Las Monjas, at Uxmal; Ornament Over the Principal Doorway, House of the Governor, at Uxmal; Archway, House of the Governor, Uxmal; Gateway of the Great Teocallis, Uxmal; Ornament over the Gateway of the Great Teocallis,Uxmal; General View of Uxmal, Taken from the Archway of Las Monjas, Looking South; Portion of the Building Las Monjas, Uxmal; and Portion of the House of Las Monjas, Uxmal (Stephens, Central America 421-35). Benjamin Moore Norman, during his Mexican journey in 1844, mentions Catherwood and Stephens’s expedition specifically as the inspiration for his own visit to Uxmal. In Rambles in Yucatán, he published a number of drawings of buildings and monuments at Uxmal, among them Governor’s House, Uxmal Ruins; The Pyramid, Uxmal Ruins; and Moonlight, Uxmal Ruins, the book’s frontispiece (Norman 154-65).Subject
This image—rendered using a camera lucida—depicts ruins of the city of Uxmal in Mexico.Significance
Catherwood’s views of Uxmal, along with a number of his other illustrations of Maya sites, constitute the first systematic attempt at a realistic representation of Mexican archaeological sites, as well as the first time the camera lucida had been used to depict such ruins (Evans 53). Catherwood’s drawings blend Enlightenment notions of faithful, scientific representations with nascent, Romantic-era visual technologies, and are particularly bound up with Romantic notions of landscape: Catherwood’s rendering of Uxmal clearly invoke notions of the picturesque as formed during the Romantic period. Consequently, these images rely on both a concern with scientific accuracy, resulting in the use of the camera lucida, as well as an interest in the aesthetic vision espoused by Romantic ideals.Function
Catherwood’s illustrations of archaeological sites, such as those from Uxmal, serve a dual function. First, they accurately illustrate the size, proportion, and visual decoration of ancient Maya cities, data which was important to potential collectors of Maya artifacts, museum exhibitors, and investors in future expeditions to the region. Secondly, while some of the sites Catherwood depicts were already known to Americans and Europeans, these were the first illustrations of Mexico in which the artist was personally concerned with the faithful re-creation of the correct size, proportion, and landscape of the city. This concern was particularly important for Catherwood, who made use of a camera lucida—relying on an assumption of its faithful, visual re-creation of reality—to assist in his rendering of Maya cityscapes.Bibliography
Bourbon, Fabio. The Lost Cities of the Mayas: The Life, Art, and Discoveries of Frederick Catherwood. New York: Abbeville P, 2000. Print.Long Title
Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatán, Vol. 2.Featured in Exhibit:
From the Collection:
Engraver:
Delineator:
Image Date:
1841
Publisher:
Harper and Brothers