Jean Frederick Waldeck was born on March 16, 1766 in Paris, France. During his adolescence, exploration became an interest to Waldeck and by the age of 19 Waldeck was able to explore the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. After returning from Africa, Waldeck began to study art in France under the guidance of Jacques Louis David. Comprehending art allowed Waldeck to capture his findings on his travels more vividly and aided to his documentaries.
In 1794, Waldeck joined the Italian army after the siege of Toulon. Waldeck assembled an expedition to Egypt under his own power in 1798. When plans for the expedition changed, Waldeck decided to go to Africa. Waldeck, along with four other men, crossed the Desert of Dongola while passing through Dji bel-el-Eumery. During the brutal conquest across the desert, fatigue and sickness struck majority of the men. After four months of traveling, Waldeck was the only one left to make it to the coast alive. Waldeck then decided to return to France and start a new trek from Mauritous to the Indian Ocean. Before he left for his next expedition, he married Maria Fisher on February 27, 1820. Wagley continued to explore Chile and visit the Lord Cochrane, as well as do some archaeological exploring in Guatemala. Following his explorations, Waldeck returned to England in 1822 to summarize his findings into one document.
While in London, Waldeck was designing lithographs to better demonstrate the look of the ruins of Palenque and Chiapas. He felt that the look of the lithographs did not look right. He concluded that the information on the ruins given by Capt. Del Rio were inaccurate according to Waldeck’s own observation. He decided to take a voyage back to Mexico were he would get the information first hand.
In Mexico, Waldeck was an engineer for a silver mining project for a short while. After that was done, he had time to visit the Toltec and Aztec ruins. In 1826, the government of France granted him pension money of 2000 francs, which encouraged Waldeck to continue doing his studies and fieldwork. He spent several years looking at the ruins of Palenque getting an idea of how the ruins look and how they should be drawn on record. Waldeck collected specimens of the flora and fauna.
After loosing a good majority of his research documents and drawings, Waldeck returned to France after twelve years of research in America. He sold most of his drawings of the Palenque ruins to the French government and was published in 1863 for the public. Waldeck was made a member of the Council of American Archaeology in 1836. He spent the next forty years in Paris with his wife keeping all his faculties till the end. He went on to publish two works entitled “Voyage archaeologique et pittoresque dans la Yucatan”(1837) and with the help of Brasseur de Bourbourg “Monuments anciens du Mexique, Palenque, et autres ruines de l’ancienne civilization”(1866). With his unique way of potraying his travels through art, Waldeck was able to transpose his findings. Jean Frederick Waldeck died on April 30, 1875.
“Genuki Jarrow Marriages” (3 Dec 1999), Jean Frederick Waldeck, http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/genuki/transcripts/dur/mjar1813.htm/
Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Volume 3, page320, James Grant and John Fiske, Appleton Co. 1968
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Frederic_Waldeck
Written By Dustin Lozinski
Edited By Lindsey Alston, 2007