Skip Navigation
On the Viga, Outskirts of the City of Mexico
Accession # 32.797
Artist Samuel Colman
Title On the Viga, Outskirts of the City of Mexico
Date 1892
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 9 1/2 x 18 in. (24.2 x 45.7 cm)
Inscriptions Inscribed on label on frame verso top center: "NY On the Vega [sic] / Outskirts of the City of Mexico - / Saml Colman, / Pinx"
Signed Signed lower right: "Saml Colman."
Credit Line Gift of the executors of the Estate of Colonel Michael Friedsam
Location Visible Storage: Case 15, Screen C (Paintings)

Curatorial Remarks:

Samuel Colman discovered the scenic beauty of the Mexican landscape for the first time in 1892—a moment when it was becoming an increasingly popular tourist destination for North Americans. This view depicts the canal and "Paseo [avenue] de la Viga" just outside of Mexico City, a site that suited Colman's particular interest in painting architectural forms set within sun-bleached equatorial settings. Writers of his own time often described these tonal works (using a limited range of color) as vague, dreamy, and poetic.