Thomas Moran

The artist
Justin Colburn, New York (gift from the above)
Edith Lord Winslow, by 1938 (by descent)
By descent to the present owner

The Americas, Cambridge England, vol. 32, no. 4, April 1976, pp. 661-685

Thomas Moran traveled to Florida for the first time in 1877, accompanied by his wife, Mary. By this time, Moran was earning an illustrious reputation as a  skilled painter of the American landscape, celebrated for his depictions of natural landmarks like the Grand Canyon and what would become Yellowstone National Park. Moran's interest in the subject depicted in the present work likely arose from an assignment he received in the early 1870s to provide illustrations for a publication exploring the history of Florida. Here Moran depicts the French nobleman and explorer, Dominique de Gourges, who built an alliance with the native people of Florida in order to seize Fort Caroline from Spanish control in 1568. This work relates to another depiction of Florida by the artist, Ponce de Leon in Florida, which belongs to the Cummer Museum of Art in Jacksonville, Florida. The original owner of this work was Justin Colburn, a correspondent for The New York Times who accompanied the artist on his 1873 trip to the American West, and it has remained in the collection of his descendants ever since.