Provenance
Painted by the artist for Abraham M. Cozzens [1811-1868], New York;[1] (his estate sale, Clinton Hall Art Galleries, New York, 22 May 1868, no. 25, as _The Andes_); Withers,[2] possibly buying for William Wilson Corcoran [1798-1888], Washington; gift 10 May 1869 to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2014 by the National Gallery of Art.
[1] In a letter the artist wrote to Corcoran director William Macleod, dated 27 December 1873, Church writes: "The tropical scene which I [Church] painted for Mr. Cozzens was the first South American picture I ever painted and of course was painted many years ago -- in fact an early effort. It was a composition characteristic of Magdalena River scenery in New Granada. I trust that there is something better from my hand to represent me in the Corcoran Gallery." Corcoran Gallery of Art Archives, Special Collections Research Center, George Washington University Libraries, Washington, DC: COR RG 2.0, Director's records; Series 1, MacLeod, Barbarin and McGuire records, 1869-1915; letter 157.
[2] A copy of the sale catalogue at the Getty Research Institute is annotated with this buyer's name; copy in NGA curatorial files. He was possibly buying for William W. Corcoran, as Corcoran Gallery of Art records indicate Corcoran purchased the painting from "the collection of the late A. Cozzens;" see NGA curatorial files.
Accession Number
2014.79.11
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 67.9 × 91.3 cm (26 3/4 × 35 15/16 in.) | framed: 103.5 × 127.6 × 14.6 cm (40 3/4 × 50 1/4 × 5 3/4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Corcoran Collection (Gift of William Wilson Corcoran)
Tags
Painting Impressionist & Modern (1851–1900) Oil Painting Canvas American
Background & Context
Background Story
Tamaca Palms is one of Church's early South American subjects, painted before his landmark expedition to Ecuador that produced The Heart of the Andes. The tropical palms—exotic for a North American audience in the 1850s—demonstrate Church's commitment to painting the most spectacular scenery on every continent, not just the American Northeast. The painting combines the precise rendering of botanical detail with the atmospheric effects of tropical light, producing a landscape that is simultaneously a scientific document and a work of art. The 1854 date places this in Church's early period, when he was establishing the approach that would culminate in his great South American panoramas.
Cultural Impact
Church's South American paintings were inspired by the writings of Alexander von Humboldt, the German naturalist who argued that the tropics contained the most spectacular scenery on earth and that landscape painters had a duty to represent it. Tamaca Palms is Church's first response to Humboldt's challenge—a painting that takes tropical palms as a subject worthy of the same careful attention that Church brought to New England forests and Niagara Falls.
Why It Matters
Tamaca Palms is Church's first step toward South America: tropical palms rendered with the same topographic precision that he applied to New England scenery. The painting announces Church's ambition to paint the entire world's most spectacular scenery, not just the American Northeast—a Humboldtian ambition that would produce his greatest works.
