Jean-Frédéric Waldeck
Encyclopedia
Jean-Frédéric Maximilien de Waldeck (March 16, 1766? – April 30, 1875) was a French
antiquarian
, cartographer
, artist and explorer.
At various times Waldeck said that he was born in Paris
, Prague
, or Vienna
, and at other times claimed to be a German
, Austria
n and English
citizen. He often claimed the title of Count
and occasionally that of Duke
or Baron
.
Waldeck said he had traveled to South Africa
at age 19 and thereafter had begun a career in exploration. He returned to France and studied art
as a student of Jacques Louis David. He said he had traveled to Egypt
with Napoleon
's expedition. None of this has been independently verified; indeed most of Waldeck's autobiography before about 1820 (including his given birthdate) is undocumented and his name is absent from records of various early expeditions he claimed to have been on.
Waldeck made two major contributions to society. The first contribution, of which he is known for among scholars of Western art history, is republishing the notorious set of pornographic prints titled I Modi. The second contribution is the exploration of Mexico and the publication of many examples of Maya and Aztec sculpture, although errors in his illustrations fostered misconceptions about Mesoamerican civilizations and contributed to Mayanism
.
The I Modi
prints are highly pornographic and accompanied sonnets by Pietro Aretino
. They were allegedly created by Giulio Romano
as paintings in the Vatican
after a dispute with the pope, and the engraver Marcantonio Raimondi
published them. The publication causes a furore in Rome, and the pope ordered that all copies be destroyed. As such, there is no known original printing of I Modi in existence. What has survived is a series of fragments in the British Museum
, two copies of a single print, and a woodcut copy from the 16th century. Waldeck claimed to have found a set of tracings of the I Modi prints in a convent near Palenque
in Mexico
. Although his story is dubious because there is no such convent, he did see, at the least, the fragments now in the British Museum because the fragments can be matched to his drawings.
Waldeck's first contact with the art of ancient Mesoamerica
seems to have been when he was hired by Lord Kingsborough to make engravings based on drawings of the city of Palenque
. Waldeck's engravings were much more beautiful and artistic than the original drawings he worked from, and gave the monuments a decidedly Egyptian
look, in line with his patron's views that the ancient Mesoamerican Native Americans
were the Lost Tribes of Israel.
In 1825, he was hired as a hydraulic
engineer by an English mining company in Mexico
. After this job he explored the Pre-Columbian
ruins of the country. Jean Fredric Waldeck is best known for his researching and documenting such Ancient Maya
sites as Palenque
and Uxmal
.
In 1838, Waldeck published Voyage pittoresque et archéologique dans la province d'Yucatan pendant les années 1834 et 1836 (Paris), a volume of illustrations of Mérida, Yucatán
and Maya ruins, including those at Uxmal
. Dedicated to Lord Kingsborough, this book provided what Waldeck believed was further support for connections between the ancient Maya and ancient Egypt. His illustration of the Pyramid of the Magician
at Uxmal, for example, makes it look similar Egyptian pyramids.
Waldeck's illustrations of Palenque were chosen to accompany Monuments anciens du Mexique (Palenque, et autres ruines de l'ancienne civilisation du Mexique) (1866) by Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg
. However, just as his earlier illustrations had implied connections between the ancient Maya and ancient Egypt, the ones included with Brasseur de Bourbourg's text invoked the Classical antiquity
of ancient Greece and Rome. His illustrations of panels of Maya script
in the Temple of Inscriptions at Palenque included clear depictions of heads of elephants (now known to be erroneous embellishments). This fueled speculation about contact between the ancient Maya and Asia and the role of the mythical lost continent of Atlantis
as a common link between ancient civilizations of the Old and New Worlds.
Waldeck published numerous lithographs of what he had come across. His last set of prints was published in 1866 when he celebrated his centennial.
He was active up until his death, at the claimed age of 109 years 45 days. He supposedly died of a heart attack
while eying a beautiful woman near the Champs-Élysées
in Paris.
No. 25, pp. 392–398. New York.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
antiquarian
Antiquarian
An antiquarian or antiquary is an aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient objects of art or science, archaeological and historic sites, or historic archives and manuscripts...
, cartographer
Cartography
Cartography is the study and practice of making maps. Combining science, aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.The fundamental problems of traditional cartography are to:*Set the map's...
, artist and explorer.
Biography
Waldeck was undoubtedly a man of talent and accomplishments, but his love of self promotion and refusal to let the truth get in the way of a good story leave some aspects of his life in mystery.At various times Waldeck said that he was born in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, or Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, and at other times claimed to be a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n and English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
citizen. He often claimed the title of Count
Count
A count or countess is an aristocratic nobleman in European countries. The word count came into English from the French comte, itself from Latin comes—in its accusative comitem—meaning "companion", and later "companion of the emperor, delegate of the emperor". The adjective form of the word is...
and occasionally that of Duke
Duke
A duke or duchess is a member of the nobility, historically of highest rank below the monarch, and historically controlling a duchy...
or Baron
Baron
Baron is a title of nobility. The word baron comes from Old French baron, itself from Old High German and Latin baro meaning " man, warrior"; it merged with cognate Old English beorn meaning "nobleman"...
.
Waldeck said he had traveled to South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
at age 19 and thereafter had begun a career in exploration. He returned to France and studied art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
as a student of Jacques Louis David. He said he had traveled to Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
with Napoleon
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
's expedition. None of this has been independently verified; indeed most of Waldeck's autobiography before about 1820 (including his given birthdate) is undocumented and his name is absent from records of various early expeditions he claimed to have been on.
Waldeck made two major contributions to society. The first contribution, of which he is known for among scholars of Western art history, is republishing the notorious set of pornographic prints titled I Modi. The second contribution is the exploration of Mexico and the publication of many examples of Maya and Aztec sculpture, although errors in his illustrations fostered misconceptions about Mesoamerican civilizations and contributed to Mayanism
Mayanism
Mayanism is a non-codified eclectic collection of New Age beliefs, influenced in part by Pre-Columbian Maya mythology and some folk beliefs of the modern Maya peoples...
.
The I Modi
I Modi
I Modi , also known as The Sixteen Pleasures or under the Latin title De omnibus Veneris Schematibus, is a famous erotic book of the Italian Renaissance in which a series of sexual positions were explicitly depicted in engravings. While the original edition was apparently completely destroyed by...
prints are highly pornographic and accompanied sonnets by Pietro Aretino
Pietro Aretino
Pietro Aretino was an Italian author, playwright, poet and satirist who wielded immense influence on contemporary art and politics and invented modern literate pornography.- Life :...
. They were allegedly created by Giulio Romano
Giulio Romano
Giulio Romano was an Italian painter and architect. A pupil of Raphael, his stylistic deviations from high Renaissance classicism help define the 16th-century style known as Mannerism...
as paintings in the Vatican
Vatican City
Vatican City , or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano , which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of...
after a dispute with the pope, and the engraver Marcantonio Raimondi
Marcantonio Raimondi
Marcantonio Raimondi, also simply Marcantonio, was an Italian engraver, known for being the first important printmaker whose body of work consists mainly of prints copying paintings. He is therefore a key figure in the rise of the reproductive print...
published them. The publication causes a furore in Rome, and the pope ordered that all copies be destroyed. As such, there is no known original printing of I Modi in existence. What has survived is a series of fragments in the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
, two copies of a single print, and a woodcut copy from the 16th century. Waldeck claimed to have found a set of tracings of the I Modi prints in a convent near Palenque
Palenque
Palenque was a Maya city state in southern Mexico that flourished in the 7th century. The Palenque ruins date back to 100 BC to its fall around 800 AD...
in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. Although his story is dubious because there is no such convent, he did see, at the least, the fragments now in the British Museum because the fragments can be matched to his drawings.
Waldeck's first contact with the art of ancient Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...
seems to have been when he was hired by Lord Kingsborough to make engravings based on drawings of the city of Palenque
Palenque
Palenque was a Maya city state in southern Mexico that flourished in the 7th century. The Palenque ruins date back to 100 BC to its fall around 800 AD...
. Waldeck's engravings were much more beautiful and artistic than the original drawings he worked from, and gave the monuments a decidedly Egyptian
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
look, in line with his patron's views that the ancient Mesoamerican Native Americans
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
were the Lost Tribes of Israel.
In 1825, he was hired as a hydraulic
Hydraulics
Hydraulics is a topic in applied science and engineering dealing with the mechanical properties of liquids. Fluid mechanics provides the theoretical foundation for hydraulics, which focuses on the engineering uses of fluid properties. In fluid power, hydraulics is used for the generation, control,...
engineer by an English mining company in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. After this job he explored the Pre-Columbian
Pre-Columbian
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
ruins of the country. Jean Fredric Waldeck is best known for his researching and documenting such Ancient Maya
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
sites as Palenque
Palenque
Palenque was a Maya city state in southern Mexico that flourished in the 7th century. The Palenque ruins date back to 100 BC to its fall around 800 AD...
and Uxmal
Uxmal
Uxmal was dominant from 875 to 900 CE. The site appears to have been the capital of a regional state in the Puuc region from 850-950 CE. The Maya dynasty expanded their dominion over their neighbors. This prominence didn't last long...
.
In 1838, Waldeck published Voyage pittoresque et archéologique dans la province d'Yucatan pendant les années 1834 et 1836 (Paris), a volume of illustrations of Mérida, Yucatán
Mérida, Yucatán
Mérida is the capital and largest city of the Mexican state of Yucatán and the Yucatán Peninsula. It is located in the northwest part of the state, about from the Gulf of Mexico coast...
and Maya ruins, including those at Uxmal
Uxmal
Uxmal was dominant from 875 to 900 CE. The site appears to have been the capital of a regional state in the Puuc region from 850-950 CE. The Maya dynasty expanded their dominion over their neighbors. This prominence didn't last long...
. Dedicated to Lord Kingsborough, this book provided what Waldeck believed was further support for connections between the ancient Maya and ancient Egypt. His illustration of the Pyramid of the Magician
Pyramid of the Magician
The Pyramid of the Magician is a Mesoamerican step pyramid located in the ancient, Pre-Columbian city of Uxmal, Mexico. The structure is also referred to as the Pyramid of the Dwarf, Casa el Adivino, and the Pyramid of the Soothsayer...
at Uxmal, for example, makes it look similar Egyptian pyramids.
Waldeck's illustrations of Palenque were chosen to accompany Monuments anciens du Mexique (Palenque, et autres ruines de l'ancienne civilisation du Mexique) (1866) by Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg
Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg
Abbé Charles-Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg was a noted French writer, ethnographer, historian and archaeologist...
. However, just as his earlier illustrations had implied connections between the ancient Maya and ancient Egypt, the ones included with Brasseur de Bourbourg's text invoked the Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
of ancient Greece and Rome. His illustrations of panels of Maya script
Maya script
The Maya script, also known as Maya glyphs or Maya hieroglyphs, is the writing system of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, presently the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered...
in the Temple of Inscriptions at Palenque included clear depictions of heads of elephants (now known to be erroneous embellishments). This fueled speculation about contact between the ancient Maya and Asia and the role of the mythical lost continent of Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
as a common link between ancient civilizations of the Old and New Worlds.
Waldeck published numerous lithographs of what he had come across. His last set of prints was published in 1866 when he celebrated his centennial.
He was active up until his death, at the claimed age of 109 years 45 days. He supposedly died of a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
while eying a beautiful woman near the Champs-Élysées
Champs-Élysées
The Avenue des Champs-Élysées is a prestigious avenue in Paris, France. With its cinemas, cafés, luxury specialty shops and clipped horse-chestnut trees, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées is one of the most famous streets and one of the most expensive strip of real estate in the world. The name is...
in Paris.
Further reading
- Baudez, C. F., 1993: Jean-Frédéric Waldeck, peintre: le premier explorateur des ruines mayas. Hazan, Paris.
- Brasseur de Bourbourg, É. C., 1866: Monuments anciens de Mexique: Palenqué et autres ruines de l'anc. civilisation du Mexique, Paris. (Illustrated by Waldeck.)
- Brunhouse, Robert L., 1973: In Search of the Maya: The First Archaeologists. University of New Mexico Press. Albuquerque. (One chapter on Waldeck.)
- Cline, Howard F., 1947: The Apocryphal Early Career of J. F. de Waldeck, Pioneer Americanist. Acta Americana. Tome V, pp. 278–299.
- Del Rio, A., 1822: Report of Antonio Del Rio to Don Jose Estacheria, Brigadier, Governor and Commandant General of the Kingdom of Guatemala, Etc. In Description of the ruins of an ancient city, discovered near Palenque, in the kingdom of Guatemala, pp. 1–21. H. Berthoud and Suttaby Evance and Fox, London. (Illustrated by Waldeck.)
- Lawner, L., 1988: I Modi: the sixteen pleasures: an erotic album of the Italian Renaissance:Giulio Romano, Marcantonio Raimondi, Pietro Aretino, and Count Jean-Frederic-Maximilien de Waldeck. Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill.
- Le Fur, Y., 2006: D'un regard l'autre: histoire des regards européens sur l'Afrique, l'Amérique et l'Océanie. Musée du quai Branly, Paris. (Exhibition catalog that includes paintings by Waldeck.)
- Parsons, L. A. and Jay I. Kislak Foundation., 1993: Columbus to Catherwood, 1494-1844 : 350 years of historic book graphics depicting the islands, Indians, and archaeology of the West Indies, Florida, and Mexico. Kislak bibliographic series ; publication 1. Jay I. Kislak Foundation Inc., Miami Lakes, Fla. (Includes book illustrations by Waldeck.)
- Smith, Mary Rebecca Darby., 1878: Recollections of two distinguished persons : la Marquise de Boissy and the Count de Waldeck. J.B. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1878. (Memoir of encounters with Waldeck. Book digitized at Internet Archive.)
- Thompson, John Eric, 1927: The Elephant Heads in the Waldeck Manuscripts. Scientific Monthly,
No. 25, pp. 392–398. New York.