Front:
UNITED STATES OFAMERI GA
IL
HICAGO
UNITED STATE
$3
22
1992
5060
CCOLUMBUS DESC RIBIN G THIRD VOYA GE•
Back:
COLUMBUS DESCRIBING THIRD VOYAGE
First Day of Issue: May 22, 1992
First Issue Location: Chicago, Illinois
As soon as Christopher Columbus returned from his
second voyage to the newly-discovered lands, he went to
Ferdinand and Isabella to request funding for yet another
voyage. Approval for a third trip was a long time coming
since the country's bank was being drained by the war
with France and Naples. And Columbus was no longer in
the limelight. The navigation genius Vasco da Gama
rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1497 and found a
route to India, while others were probing the seas in every
direction. Nevertheless, he was finally given funding and
embarked for the New World on his ill-fated third voyage.
The $3 Columbus Describing Third Voyage commemo-
rative stamp of 1893 was based upon a painting created
around 1881 by Francisco Jover and entitled Columbus
Describing His Third Voyage. However, the subject for
the painting contains no small amount of irony, since
Columbus returned to Spain in disgrace and irons and
probably had little to describe. The painting has since
disappeared, although it is felt to be somewhere in Spain.
No. 92-25
First Day of Issue Postcard Collection
©1992 Fleetwood, Cheyenne, WY 82008-0001
Original painting Columbus' Third Voyage to the New World by Nikolai K. Litvinov
after Francisco Jover.
Fleetwood
