Illustrated Cartography — Pictorial Maps at the GLO: Antonio García Cubas’ Reyno de la Nueva España a Principios de Siglo XIX (1885)
Pictorial — or illustrated — maps typically use artistic elements to add extra information and context to improve aesthetics, and to make an impact that a map has on its viewers.
Pictorial maps have an extensive history as part of the art of cartography, and map makers have long leaned on artistry to augment the purpose of a particular map. With modern cartography dominated by CAD and digital street maps, working pictorial maps are not nearly as prevalent as they once were, but they remain popular among collectors. The extensive map archive of the Texas General Land Office contains several pictorial maps.
Antonio García Cubas’ Reyno de la Nueva España a Principios de Siglo XIX (1885)
Maps that were originally part of bound atlases were often stylized with artistic elements to fit within a broader atlas theme, often framing a map to provide both a historical and decorative context. One such map in the GLO’s collection is the Reyno de la Nueva España a Principios de Siglo XIX (Kingdom of New Spain at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century).
Reyno de la Nueva España originally appeared as one of thirteen colorful maps in the Atlas Pintoresco é Historico de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos (A Picturesque and Historical Atlas of the United States of Mexico), published in 1885 by Mexican cartographer Antonio García Cubas.
Antonio García Cubas (1832–1912) was one of Mexico’s most renowned map-makers of the nineteenth century. He attended Mexico City’s premier fine arts academy in the 1850s and received an engineering degree from the city’s College of Mining in 1865. Having a keen interest in geography and cartography, he joined the newly-formed Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística (Mexican Society of Geography and Statistics) in 1856.
After the loss of its northern territories in the Mexican-American War, Mexican intellectuals and officials were eager to promote a sense of shared national identity through historical, cultural, and cartographic undertakings. García Cubas’ work visually presented the Mexican nation as a unified whole with defined boundaries and a shared cultural and historical foundation.
In thirteen maps surrounded by beautifully rendered images, García Cubas collected the natural, cultural, historical, and architectural splendors of Mexico and packaged them for both domestic and foreign consumption. In one plate he brings together the most renowned churches of the nation; another celebrates Mexico’s archaeological riches; and still another showcases the monuments and modern buildings of Mexico City’s urban landscape. García Cubas’ cartographical work joined a number of historical and scientific projects submitted by Mexico to the Paris Exhibition of 1890.[1]
This map, plate XI from the atlas, features an illustration of the Kingdom of New Spain at the beginning of the nineteenth century. This depiction of the geography of New Spain on the eve of Mexican independence reminds readers of the vast territory Mexico once held.
The map is surrounded by 93 portraits of distinguished explorers, intellectuals, and rulers of Mexico’s past. García Cubas included an illustration of Mexico City’s central square and the coat of arms of both the House of Austria and the House of Bourbon in the lower margin of the map.[2]
Reyno de la Nueva España is part of an atlas that helped a nation redefine itself after decades of revolution, territorial loss, and war. It provides an invaluable, lasting reminder of the upheaval and change that helped to shape the modern borders of Mexico, Texas, and the United States. The history preserved on this map, housed in the archives of the Texas General Land Office, is vital to the understanding of where we are, and from where we have come.
Please visit the GLO map store to view the pictorial maps in our collection as well as thousands of other maps and sketches. Reproductions of nearly all GLO maps can be purchased through the website, with the proceeds benefitting the Save Texas History Program.
[1] Sources: Raymond Craib, Cartographic Mexico: A History of State Fixations and Fugitive Landscapes (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004); Magali M. Carrera, Traveling from New Spain to Mexico: Mapping Practices of Nineteenth-Century Mexico (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011); Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo, Mexico at the World’s Fairs: Crafting a Modern Nation (Berkeley: UC Press, 1996).
[2]Today known as the Zócalo or Plaza de la Constitución — for more on the Zócalo click here.
