AIMÉ-ADRIEN TAUNAY
Memory building
There are several indications that the Taunay family sought to build an epic memory about Aimé-Adrien’s life.
The title that was included many years after his death, “Caderno de notas de Amado Adriano Taunay encontrado no bolso de afogado nas águas do Guaporé ... a 5/1/1828 e encontrado no seu casaco” [sic] [Notebook of Amado Adriano Taunay found in the pocket of the drowned man in the waters of the Guaporé ... on 5/1/1828 and found in his coat] [sic], may lead to the mistaken conclusion that the notebook was found in the traveling artist’s pocket on the occasion of his dramatic drowning in the Guaporé River in January, 1828.
The notebook that Félix Taunay wrote to honor his brother, Aimé-Adrien, shows the way it was used to link the young artist’s fearlessness to the endeavor of clearing the backlands of Brazil’s Empire.
Alfredo d'Escragnolle Taunay, the Viscount of Taunay, and his son Afonso d’Escragnolle Taunay, the director of Museu Paulista between 1917 and 1945, played a key role in the formulation of this memory. Both sought to continually prize the works, drawings and paintings made by family members, relating them directly to the organization of the national state in Brazil and to the institutions of art and culture that made an imprint in the country in the 19th and 20th centuries, such as the Academy of Fine Arts, the Brazilian Academy of Letters and the Historical Institutes.
“Caderno de notas de Amado Adriano Taunay encontrado no bolso de afogado nas águas do Guaporé ... a 5/1/1828 e encontrado no seu casaco” [sic] that belongs to the Collection of the Museu Paulista / University of São Paulo.
