Historical Materials: Contemporary Artists

Little has been written about the French artist Augustus de Vaudricourt, but he is recorded to have worked as a lithographer and piano teacher in the United States (specifically New Orleans, New York, Texas, and Boston) from 1835 to 1851. He worked for Boston’s lithography firm Bouvé & Sharp in 1844 and later with the Topographical Engineers in Washington in 1850. According to the papers of Jefferson Davis, Davis recommended de Vaudricourt to be the artist on commission for a boundary survey led by John Russell Bartlett of the border between Mexico and the United States as a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. De Vaudricourt didn’t last long on the commission and left in El Paso to be replaced by another artist in mid-1851. (1)

1. The Papers of Jefferson Davis: 1849-1852, Volume 4 (Baton Rouge: 1983),  pp 150-151.