Tamaca Palms
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 67.9 × 91.3 cm (26 3/4 × 35 15/16 in.) framed: 103.5 × 127.6 × 14.6 cm (40 3/4 × 50 1/4 × 5 3/4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Department
CAB
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Corcoran Collection (Gift of William Wilson Corcoran)
Accession Number
2014.79.11
Art Historical Context
Frederic Edwin Church's *Tamaca Palms* (1854) captures the lush, exotic beauty of tropical vegetation, likely inspired by the artist's groundbreaking 1853–54 expedition to South America. a leading figure in the Hudson River School, Church brought his meticulous eye for nature's grandeur to this oil-on-canvas landscape, blending Romantic sublime with precise botanical detail. Painted during a pivotal moment in his career, it reflects mid-19th-century American with distant wildernesses, evoking both scientific curiosity and divine wonder amid expanding global exploration. Church's technique shi...
About the Artist
Frederic Edwin Church · 1826–1900
Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900), born in Hartford, Connecticut, to a prosperous silversmith and banker father, Joseph Church, pursued art from youth thanks to his family's wealth. At age 18, introduced by patron Daniel Wadsworth, he studied under Thomas Cole in Catskill, New York, from 1844 to 1846, sketching across New England and earning Cole's praise for possessing "the finest eye for drawing...