First edition of this rare and beautiful view of Manila, drawn in the course of the Malaspina expedition by the draughtsman of the expedition, Fernando Brambila. The Mausoleum was erected in Manila to commemorate the naturalist of the Malaspina expedition, Antonio de Pineda, who died after a short illness in Badoc (Philippines) in 1792.
The view shows a beautiful landscape of Manila with buildings at the bottom, all dominated by creoles and locals standing in colonial attires next to the monument.
The Malaspina expedition was one of the great 18th Spanish endeavours, the goals were of a political, economic, and scientific nature, which required a consistent crew to achieve them: astronomers and cartographers (Dionisio Galeano, Cayetano Valdes), draughtsmen (Jose del Pozo, Juan Ravenent, Fernando Brambila, to name but a few), naturalists (Tadeo Haenke) and scientists joined the expedition. The main goals were to improve the scientific knowledge of the American domains, providing the crown with a better cartographical and hydrographical knowledge of the ports and coastlines, analyzing the state of affairs of the Viceroyalties (for which the Commanders Alejandro Malaspina and Jose de Bustamante y Guerra were provided with extensive authority to request any documents necessary by the local Officials), to collect zoological and botanical samples, in all, to better understand the American colonies and thus been able to better govern them. The political nature of the enterprise would be, however, a secret. To such extent that, upon his return, following differences between Malaspina and Godoy, the official account of the voyage and its findings was never published, ending up in prison, and the voyage´s findings suppressed.