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Photo, Print, Drawing The Engraved Rock of Gámeza, Province of Tundama. Piedra grabada de Gámeza: Provincia de Tundama

About this Item

Title

  • The Engraved Rock of Gámeza, Province of Tundama.

Other Title

  • Piedra grabada de Gámeza: Provincia de Tundama

Summary

  • This watercolor by Carmelo Fernández (1809-87) shows the Gámeza Rock art in Tundama Province (present-day Boyacá Department), northeast Colombia. The caption below the picture says that the great rock once dammed Lake Sogamoso, and that its surface was smoothed by the action of the water. When the rock was dislodged, the resulting flood was a great catastrophe, which the native people recorded in their incised petroglyphs. Sogamoso was once a sacred place of the pre-Columbian Chibcha. Fernández was born in San José de Guama, Venezuela, into a well-connected family (he was the nephew of José Antonio Páez, a hero of Venezuelan independence and three times president). He studied art in New York when still a youth. He returned home in 1827 and served in the military, where he mastered topographical drawing. Political turmoil in Venezuela prompted him to move to New Granada (present-day Colombia and Panama) in 1849. There he became the first draftsman for the Comisión Corográfica (Chorographic Commission), which was co-founded and directed by Agustín Codazzi (1793--1859), an Italian-born geographer and engineer. The commission, which began work in 1850, studied the geography, cartography, natural resources, natural history, regional culture, and agriculture of New Granada. In 1850--52 Fernández painted about 30 watercolors in the provinces northeast of Bogotá: Tunja, Pamplona, Ocaña, Socorro, Vélez, and Santander. These works, which are now in the National Library of Colombia, portray the diverse ethnic, racial, and social groups and the varied physical landscape of New Granada. Fernández was succeeded on the commission by Henry Price (1819-1863) and later Manuel María Paz (1820-1902). He returned to Caracas aged 43, where he lived most of the rest of his life. In 1873 he produced his most famous work, a portrait of Símon Bolívar that appears on Venezuelan coins.

Names

  • Colombia. Comisión Corográfica Sponsor.
  • Fernández, Carmelo, 1809-1887 Artist.

Created / Published

  • [place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified], 1851.

Headings

  • -  Colombia--Boyacá
  • -  1851
  • -  Expeditions and surveys
  • -  Indians of South America
  • -  Indigenous peoples
  • -  Regional Memory of the World Register, Scientific Memory of Andean America
  • -  Rock art

Notes

  • -  Title devised, in English, by Library staff.
  • -  Original resource extent: Watercolor on paper ; 29 x 21 centimeters.
  • -  Original resource at: National Library of Colombia.
  • -  Content in Spanish.
  • -  Description based on data extracted from World Digital Library, which may be extracted from partner institutions.

Medium

  • 1 online resource.

Source Collection

  • Colección Comisión Corográfica

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • 2021670036

Online Format

  • compressed data
  • image

Additional Metadata Formats

IIIF Presentation Manifest

Rights & Access

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Credit Line: [Original Source citation], World Digital Library

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Colombia. Comisión Corográfica Sponsor, and Carmelo Fernández. The Engraved Rock of Gámeza, Province of Tundama. Boyacá Colombia, 1851. [Place of Publication Not Identified: Publisher Not Identified] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2021670036/.

APA citation style:

Colombia. Comisión Corográfica Sponsor & Fernández, C. (1851) The Engraved Rock of Gámeza, Province of Tundama. Boyacá Colombia, 1851. [Place of Publication Not Identified: Publisher Not Identified] [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2021670036/.

MLA citation style:

Colombia. Comisión Corográfica Sponsor, and Carmelo Fernández. The Engraved Rock of Gámeza, Province of Tundama. [Place of Publication Not Identified: Publisher Not Identified] Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2021670036/>.