Crater of Popocatépetl

Artist Jean Baptiste Louis Gros French, 1793–1870

Date1833

MediumOil on paper laid on canvas

Dimensions12 x 17 in. (30.5 x 43.2 cm)
Frame: 21 1/2 x 26 1/4 x 2 1/2 in. (54.6 x 66.7 x 6.4 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds given in memory of Harlan Craig Brown

Object number83.7

On View

On view

Label TextAlthough a gifted painter, Gros was primarily a career diplomat. This spectacular view of the volcano of Popocatépetl just outside Mexico City is one of several views of this famous natural wonder that Gros painted during his term as First Secretary of the French delegation to Mexico (1832–36). He served there after previous posts in Portugal and Egypt. After Mexico his diplomatic career would later take him to Colombia, Brazil, China, and England.

This is part of a group of only thirteen known paintings that Gros completed of the Mexican landscape over the course of his four years there, each one signed and dated to document his fascination with the natural wonders he found in Central America.
[M. Frederick, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," 2025]ProvenanceCreated Mexico City, 1833. Private collection, Mexico (possibly Rodolfo Knapp) [1]. [Wheelock Whitney & Company, New York, 1983]; sold to NCMA, 1983.

[1] Other works from Gros’s Mexican period have provenances from Rodolfo Knapp, Mexico City or Galerie Griebert, Munich.

Published ReferencesManuel Romero de Terreros, El Baron Gros y sus vistas de México (México: Imprementa Universitaria, 1953), 10-11.

Mexico, 19th Century People and Landscapes (Birmingham, AL, Birmingham Museum of Art: Fomento Cultural Banamex, A.C., 1981).

"Recent Acquisition," North Carolina Museum of Art Preview (Spring 1984), discussed and illus. (b-w) 10.

La Chronique des Arts (supplement to the Gazette des Beaux-Arts), no. 1382 (March 1984), 60.

Pablo Diener, "Volcanes y exploradores en el siglo XIX: la construcción del patrimonio por la vía de las ciencias," in La idea de nuestro patrimonio histórico y cultural, Pablo Escalante Gonzalbo, ed. (Cuauhtémoc, Mexico: Dirección General de la Publicaciones, 2011), illus. (b-w) 52.
Exhibition HistoryChapel Hill, NC, Ackland Art Museum, “Time Travels in Nineteenth-Century Landscapes,” February 24–April 3, 2016.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection Reimagined," December 8, 2025-present.
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