La imagen del drago de la Orotava (Tenerife) en la literatura y el arte. Apuntes para un catálogo cronológico (1770-1878)

Resum

Between 7th and 8th March 1867, it fell down the famous dragon tree of La Orotava (Tenerife). Surrounded by traditions pretending to come from the epoch of the Guanches and the conquest of the Island, the great beauty and enormous size of this tree (Dracaena draco) arose the admiration of the numerous voyageurs, scientists and artists that passed by the locality between the 18th and the 19th centuries. Described in numerous occasions, its image was the subject of different graphic treatments whose history I am going to treat in this paper. I begin with the first images I am aware of, engraved about 1770 by Simon Cattoir (1711-1781), and will follow with the images due (or published by) Pierre Ozanne (1737-1813), Maria Graham (1785-1842), Mennier (18??-18??), J. J. Wil-liams (17??-18??), John R. Jackson (1837-1920), W. C. Smith (18??-18??) and Samuel G. W. Benjamin (1837-1914), among other ones. Including, of course, the photographs of the tree published in 1858 by Charles Piazzi-Smyth (1819-1900).