Breton, Adela, 1849-1923

Adela Breton, an English watercolor artist, is best known for her watercolor drawings of archaeological sites in Central America. From an early age, Adela's parents supported their daughter's education and artistic studies. Her father became fascinated by anthropology and geology and these fields soon captured Adela's interest as well. After her father's death in 1887, Adela launched a lifetime of travel to explore past cultures. Her most valuable contribution to archaeology was the recoding of murals in Yucatan, which she captured in paint before the air could alter their original colors. Through her diligent and skillful work, she became respected internationally as an archaeological copyist, researcher, and interpreter of the rapidly disappearing painted walls of ancient Mexico.

From the guide to the Breton, Adela, (1849-1923), Correspondence, 1915-1923, bulk: A Finding Aid, (Peabody Museum Archives, Harvard University)

Adela C. Breton was widely traveled and researched the Maya civilization.

From the description of Letters, 1915-1924. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 173466021

With the financial independence gained through an inheritance from her father in 1887, Adela C. Breton began to pursue her interests in travel and archaeology. Born into a well to do family in Bath, England, in 1849, Breton had never married, spending most of her adult life caring for her ailing parents. However with the death of her father, she tossed aside her home-bound life for over thirty five years of almost continual travel, wedding trips for pleasure with a growing professional involvement in Mesoamerican archaeology.

Between 1894 and 1908, the intrepid Breton took thirteen excursions to archaeological sites in Yucatan, where she became an important part of the budding Mayanist community. Alfred P. Maudsley encouraged her to use her skills as a watercolorist to document the fragile and rapidly deteriorating archaeological sites, and her illustrations of Chichén Itzá (especially the Temple of Jaguars), Acancéh, and Teotihuacán provide irreplaceable evidence of the original colors and appearance of the murals and other artwork. Breton also contributed work on Mayan languages and was an energetic contributor to professional organizations, particularly the International Congress of Americanists. Although health was often an issue during the last decade of her life, she continued to travel well into her seventies. In 1923, however, after attending the International Congress of Americanists in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, she fell ill and died, leaving her brother in shock. "For the last 30 years and more," he wrote, "Adela has so often left England and returned safe if not sound that it is only the sight of her watch on a table in the dining room here that makes me realize that she will never come back from Rio -- that fatal trip."

From the guide to the Adela C. Breton Papers, 1915-1923, (American Philosophical Society)