Description

Louis François DELMÉS (1793 – 1869).

Santiago de Cuba: Ejecutado enteramente por D.n L.F. Delmès, 1845.

 

Santiago de Cuba, the island’s second city, was founded in 1515, located on magnificent bay that was one of the largest and finest natural harbours in the West Indies.  For centuries, it prospered enormously, as great trading port for eastern Cuba’s agrarian bounty, and as a slave mart and a base for privateers/guarda costas praying upon foreign shipping in the Caribbean.

 

The present map captures Santiago de Cuba in the 1840s, when it had a population of around 30,000, and during Cuba’s last great ‘sugar boom’.  Indeed, Cuba’s Oriente Province, of which Santiago was the capital, produced 40% of Cuba’s sugar, 90% of its coffee and 57% of its tobacco.  In the year 1845, Santiagos’ port processed 1,300 ships, exporting 4.7 million pesos of goods, while importing 3.4 million pesos.  While this wealth was not well distributed, it led to the rise of an affluent and culturally sophisticated bourgeois class, the construction of grand homes and public buildings, and an intense demand for artwork, books (and maps!).

 

The Map in Focus

 

This magnificent and exceedingly rare map is an archetype example of the French émigré painter and miniaturist Louis François Delmés’s extraordinary and unique signature style of cartography, which features lively pictographic detailing and a colour palette that adapts 18^th century Parisian pastels to the West Indies.  Issued by Delmés in Santiago de Cuba, the map is one of a sequence of six updated maps of the city that he both drafted and lithographed between 1840 and 1861.

 

The highly detailed map showcases all Santiago de Cuba from a roughly westerly orientation, whereupon it appears as an “amphitheatre”, surrounded on three sides by a horseshoe of vibrantly coloured and textured hilly countryside, while opening to its magnificent harbour.  All urban streets and laneways, as well as country roads are defined and labelled, with Santiago’s two numbered districts marked (as divided by the Calle de San Geronimo), while its 8 barrios are each shaded in their own pastel hues.  The district and barrio divisions were used to administer health and sanitary regulations, and subsequently to define police precincts.

 

As explained in the ‘Explicaciones”, below the arms and cornucopia, in the lower right corner: ‘This City contains eleven churches, five squares, seventy streets, eight alleys; four thousand six hundred sixty-four house numbers have been placed; it is lit by four hundred twenty-six lanterns [a sign of the city’s modernity]; it has an aqueduct with twelve fountains; its port is spacious and one of the safest’.

 

Immediately below is written, in a very neat period manuscript hand, “In the Year 1852 having established a new Police force, the City was divided into two Districts (North) and (South), each District into four neighbourhoods.”

 

In the lower lefthand corner, below the city’s arms featuring the Cross of Saint James, is a register that notes the map’s scale, as measured by ‘1000 varas [yards] Calstellanos’, while noting the city’s ‘Situcaion’, giving its latitude and longitude.  Below, a note describes the rough size of the urban area, as ‘From the Plaza S.ta Marta to the sea or Beach there are 60 yards, 2 feet of level and 1350 yards of distance from the Church of S.ta Ana [in the far interior of the city] to the first houses in front of the Pier”.

 

As noted, all major buildings and features are labelled and shown pictorially in meticulous form, indicative of Delmés’s skill as a miniaturist.  In addition to the city’s eleven churches, these key places include, along the central waterfront, the Muelle [Main Quay] Muelle de los vapores [Steamship Quay, another sign of modernity], as well as the jetties for the Gobierno [Government], Marina [Navy], Real Hacienda [Royal Treasury], while nearby are the Edificio de la Princesa and the Resguarda [Coast Guard Station], while the La Pescaderia [Fish Market] can be found further north up the waterfront.

 

In the city centre are the Intendencia / Contadoria /Tesoria [Government Finance Office], Hospital de Belen [Bethlehem Hospital], Carcel nueva [New Jail, opened in 1845], Teatro [Theatre, called El Coloseo, opened in 1823], Gobierno [Government House], Cartel de Infanteria / Artilleria [Barracks of Infantry / Artillery], while in the lower part of the map (the eastern / interior area) are the Casa de Beneficencias [Orphanage], Camino de Acueducto [Aqueduct Channel], Deposito de Agua [Reservoir].

 

In the upper left (northwest), is the Matadero do Animales / Vacuna de lana y Cerdoso [Abattoir], while in the lower right (southwest) is the Bateria de Saluda [Saluda Battery] and the Projecto de Salina [Salt Works].

 

As María Elena Orozco Melgar observes, Santiago de Cuba is portrayed by Delmés as a “living and dynamic entity”, as his “cartography integrates a new type of image of the city, while simultaneously conceiving this discipline as work of art: his plans are urban landscapes, where the city is the protagonist and each plan perfectly shows the evolution of civic progress, to present the city and decode the possible levels of reading… He uses miniatures to integrate the legend within the plan… which are captured with true realism…”.  As such, the map’s “irreplaceable documentary-testimonial value is bringing us closer to a knowledge of the society and the city of Santiago de Cuba in the process of de-ruralisation”.

 

A Note on Editions and Rarity

 

The present map of Santiago de Cuba is one of sequence of 6 updated city plans that were drafted and lithographed by Delmés in 1840, 1845, 1856, 1857, 1858 and 1861.  Notably, each edition of the map was entirely re-lithographed, although they all follow his lovely signature style and resplendent colour palette.  Delmés also published a map of the bay and harbour of the city, Plano del puerto de Satiago de Cuba / Plan du port de Satiago de Cuba (1833; another edition 1856).

 

All Delmés’s maps are toady exceedingly rare, with each issue known in only one or two surviving examples.  They would have been made in only a small print run for consumption by Santiago’s wealthy and official classes, while being fragile and created in a tropical climate, they had a low survival rate.

 

We can trace only a single institutional example of the present 1845 map of Santiago de Cuba, held by the Museo Municipal Emilio Bacardí Moreau (Santiago), while we are not aware of any sales records for other examples of any of Delmas’s maps.

 

It is worth noting that Emilio Bacardí y Moreau (1844–1922), the legendary Cuban industrialist, politician, writer and art collector, who managed the Bacardi Rum Company and was the first democratically elected Mayor of Santiago, was especially fond of Delmés’s work.  He was the first person to attempt a study of his career and oeuvre, and examples of Delmés 1845 and 1857 plans of Santiago are today preserved in collections of the museum he endowed, the Museo Municipal Emilio Bacardí Moreau.

 

Louis François Delmés: Santiago de Cuba through the Eyes of French Émigré Artist

 

Louis François Delmés (1793 – 1869) was a native of Paris, where at a young age he trained to be a professional engraver and painter.  He joined Napoleon’s legions in 1810, surviving the emperor’s famously ill-fated Russian Campaign (1812).  The following year, Delmés was honourably discharged from the army, whereupon he immigrated to Philadelphia, joining that city’s prominent French émigré community.  There he lived for almost 20 years, working as a painting instructor and a creator of decorative works.

 

In 1832, Delmés immigrated to Santiago de Cuba.  At first, this might seem to the modern reader as an unlikely move, although the historical context reveals it to have been quite logical.  Santiago had a sizeable and wealthy French émigré community, which was founded by the wave of white plantation owners and merchants who immigrated to Cuba from Saint-Domingue during the Haitian Revolution (1791 – 1804).  Moreover, the French communities in Philadelphia and Santiago de Cuba maintained strong ties.  The French population in Santiago numbered over 400 souls when Delmés arrived, and the community was a major driver of cultural patronage in the city, providing many opportunities for an ambitious and talented painter/printer.

 

Delmés gained popular attention when he drafted and published a very fine map of the bay and harbour of Santiago de Cuba, showing evident skill as cartographer that he perhaps acquired while serving in Napoleon’s army.  The following year, he opened his own painting and drawing academy, on French academic lines, and went on to mentor many local artists, such that he is today widely regarded as the father of formal painting in eastern Cuba.  Delmés personally fulfilled many commissions as a portraitist and miniaturist, portraying many of Santiago’s leading citizens.

 

Delmés’s city plans of Santiago de Cuba that he produced from 1840 to 1861, showcased his unique artistic skill and style, and were good PR for his academy.  Yet, facing competition from other French émigré painters, business was always difficult.  In 1847, despite his popularity, Delmés was forced the file for bankruptcy, although he soon bounced back.  Later in his career he diversified, embracing new technologies, including making and selling daguerreotypes.

 

References: Museo Municipal Emilio Bacardí Moreau: Fondo Mapas, mapa no. 26, plano no. 25; María Elena Orozco MELGAR, Louis François Delmés: el cartógrafo francés de Santiago de Cuba, Anales del Museo de América, no. 14 (2006), pp. 255-83, esp. pp. 266-8; Emilio CUETO, Cuban Cartography, 1500-1898, ‘Checklist of “Cuban” Maps, 1500-1898’, no. 152, p. 178; Omar López RODRÍGUEZ, La cartografía de Santiago de Cuba : una fuente inagotable (Seville, 2005), p. 35.