# La Visión Eterna, 1492...1942: Howard Chandler Christy's poster with no sponsor printed La Visión Eterna is a Spanish-language poster signed and dated 1942 by Howard Chandler Christy. A painted Columbus at a ship's rail looks toward a crowned, torch-bearing figure above a distant shore. No issuing body or printer appears on the sheet; the National Archives files it with its World War II foreign posters. - Home - Archive - La Visión Eterna, 1492...1942: Howard Chandler Christy's poster with no sponsor printed La Visión Eterna, 1492...1942 La Visión Eterna, 1492...1942: Howard Chandler Christy's poster with no sponsor printed Howard Chandler Christy's 1942 Spanish-language poster pairs 1492 with 1942: Columbus at the rail and a crowned figure with a torch. No sponsor is printed. ## Techniques named on the archive record TransferGlittering generalities Date1942Made byArtist Howard Chandler Christy (signed and dated 1942); no issuing body or printer is shown on the posterMediumPosterCountryUnited StatesRegimeRoosevelt AdministrationNARARecord Group 44SourceUnidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosureSourceU.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Foreign Posters , retrieved October 3, 2026SourceHeld by NARA, Unrestricted; hosted by owner decision (artist signed 1942) Howard Chandler Christy, National Archives and Records Administration, 44-PF-1. Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records. Full record at propagandaarchive.org La Visión Eterna is a Spanish-language poster signed and dated 1942 by Howard Chandler Christy. A painted Columbus at a ship's rail looks toward a crowned, torch-bearing figure above a distant shore. No issuing body or printer appears on the sheet; the National Archives files it with its World War II foreign posters. ## Two dates and a painting Four hundred and fifty years separate the two dates in the title, and Christy painted them as one scene. The archive reads the figure at the rail as Columbus. Rough sailors fill the foreground, and above a far shore floats a glowing female figure wearing a crown and holding a torch and a book. The lettering is in Spanish. LA VISIÓN ETERNA 1492 * * * 1942 [signature:] Howard Chandler Christy 1942 [Translation: The Eternal Vision, 1492 * * * 1942] Transcription and translation in the FRAME record, read from the image and not independently checked. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. National Archives, Record Group 44, World War II Foreign Posters, 44-PF-1. ## No name on the sheet The only name printed is the painter's. The maker line in the record says that no issuing body or printer is shown on the poster, and the issuer type is "Individual." The source field is blunter: "Unidentified," with the gloss "Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure." The audience field reads "Foreign public," and the purpose field "Persuade or win support." The copy is in the National Archives' Record Group 44 foreign-poster series, local id 44-PF-1. The rights line says NARA holds it as unrestricted and that the archive hosts the image by owner decision, noting that the artist signed it in 1942. ## What the picture argues Nothing is asked. There is no slogan beyond the title, no request to buy, enlist, or keep quiet, and no enemy. The archive tags transfer and glittering generalities: the prestige of the 1492 voyage is carried over to 1942 through the torch-bearing figure, and "eternal vision" is left as a virtue phrase with no stated claim. That emptiness is the point to notice. A Spanish-speaking viewer would see a painter's signature and a flattering scene, and would not learn from the sheet who printed it or why. Whatever its origin, a message that does not name its sender is harder to judge than one that does. Compare two Spanish-language posters on this site that do print their publisher, the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs: Libertad de Palabra and the MacArthur portrait. The Roosevelt administration essay covers the government of the year. ## Sources - FRAME object record, La Visión Eterna, 1492...1942. Artist Howard Chandler Christy (signed and dated 1942); no issuing body or printer shown. Rights as recorded: held by NARA, unrestricted; hosted by owner decision. - U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Foreign Posters, 44-PF-1, catalog record, retrieved by the archive 3 October 2026. Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/la-vision-eterna-christy-1942/