Adrien Taunay the Younger
Encyclopedia
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...
in 1803, the son of history and genre painter Nicolas-Antoine Taunay (1755-1830). Adrien moved to Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
in 1816, accompanying his father, who was a member of the French Artistic Mission. Adrien was the junior draftsman aboard the French vessel of exploration Uranie, commanded by Captain Louis de Freycinet
Louis de Freycinet
Louis Claude de Saulces de Freycinet was a French navigator. He circumnavigated the earth, and was one of the first to produce a comprehensive map of the coastline of Australia.-Biography:...
. During the ship's 22 day stay in Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
in 1819, Adrien Taunay working with the official artist Jacques Arago
Jacques Arago
Jacques Étienne Victor Arago was a French writer, artist and explorer, author of a Voyage Round the World.-Biography:...
(1790-1855), produced many portraits and natural history drawings. They depicted the local people and landscape at a time when Hawaii was becoming a whaling center and part of the trade route with China.
After completion of this voyage, Adrien returned to Rio de Janeiro in 1820, and devoted himself to the study of arts and languages. He succeeded Johann Moritz Rugendas
Johann Moritz Rugendas
Johann Moritz Rugendas , was a German painter, famous for his works depicting landscapes and ethnographic subjects in several countries in the Americas, in the first half of the 19th century....
(1802-1858), to the position of first draughtsman of the exhibition led by the Consul Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff
Grigori Ivanovitch Langsdorff
Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff, Baron de Langsdorff was a Prussian aristocrat, politician and naturalist. He lived in Russia and was better known by his Russian name, Grigori Ivanovitch...
(1774-1852), which between the years 1825 to 1829 navigated the rivers of the Brazilian states of São Paulo
São Paulo (state)
São Paulo is a state in Brazil. It is the major industrial and economic powerhouse of the Brazilian economy. Named after Saint Paul, São Paulo has the largest population, industrial complex, and economic production in the country. It is the richest state in Brazil...
, Mato Grosso do Sul
Mato Grosso do Sul
Mato Grosso do Sul is one of the states of Brazil.Neighboring Brazilian states are Mato Grosso, Goiás, Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Paraná. It also borders the countries of Paraguay and Bolivia to the west. The economy of the state is largely based on agriculture and cattle-raising...
, Mato Grosso
Mato Grosso
Mato Grosso is one of the states of Brazil, the third largest in area, located in the western part of the country.Neighboring states are Rondônia, Amazonas, Pará, Tocantins, Goiás and Mato Grosso do Sul. It also borders Bolivia to the southwest...
and Pará
Pará
Pará is a state in the north of Brazil. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Amazonas and Roraima. To the northwest it also borders Guyana and Suriname, and to the northeast it borders the Atlantic Ocean. The capital is Belém.Pará is the most populous state...
. After traveling for two years, they arrived in Cuiabá
Cuiabá
Under the Koppen climate classification, Cuiaba features a tropical wet and dry climate. Cuiabá is famous for its searing heat, although temperatures in winter can arrive sporadically at 10 degrees, indeed atypical, caused by cold fronts coming from the south, and that may only last one or two...
, where they remained for approximately a year. Langsdorff then decided to split the expedition into two groups, which, after following different routes, would meet in the city of Belém do Pará
Belém
Belém is a Brazilian city, the capital and largest city of state of Pará, in the country's north region. It is the entrance gate to the Amazon with a busy port, airport and bus/coach station...
. The group consisting of Adrien Taunay and the botanist Ludwig Riedel
Ludwig Riedel
Ludwig Riedel was a German botanist.Riedel came to Brazil in 1811, invited to participate in the expedition organized by the German-Russian physician, naturalist, ethnographer and explorer Baron von Langsdorff...
(1791-1861) had the task of following the rivers Guaporé
Guaporé River
Rio Guaporé is the name of a river in western Brazil along the Bolivian border. Its Bolivian name is Río Iténez.The river has its source in the Brazilian Mato Grosso circa 150 km northeast of Pontes e Lacerda. From this town on it flows in a westerly direction for about 120 km, where at...
and Madeira
Madeira River
The Madeira River is a major waterway in South America, approximately 3,250 km miles long The Madeira is the biggest tributary of the Amazon...
. On this journey, they reached Vila Bela de Mato Grosso, in December 1827. After a number of trips around the settlements and having separated from Ludwig Riedel|Riedel, Adrien Taunay got lost in the forest. He finally managed to locate the bank of the Guaporé river, but drowned while trying to cross it in January 1828.
The Honolulu Academy of Arts
Honolulu Academy of Arts
The Honolulu Academy of Arts is an art museum in Honolulu in the state of Hawaii. Since its founding in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke and opening April 8, 1927, its collections have grown to over 40,000 works of art.-Description:...
and the National Library of Australia
National Library of Australia
The National Library of Australia is the largest reference library of Australia, responsible under the terms of the National Library Act for "maintaining and developing a national collection of library material, including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the...
are among the public collections holding works of Adrien Taunay the Younger.