Encouraged by the ideas of Alexander von Humboldt, Antón Goering—a German painter, draftsman, ornithologist, zoologist, taxidermist, and chronicler educated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig—traveled through a large portion of Venezuela between 1866 and 1874. During the trip the artist depicted numerous images of the Venezuelan landscape, which he represented particularly in watercolors. Many of these works were sent by the artist to the collections of British museums and other European institutions.

In this watercolor Goering represents a curve of Lake Valencia, located in the north-central region of the country, surrounded by the exuberant vegetation of the tropical jungle, minutely registered by the artist through precise depiction in a palette of intense greens, blues, and yellows. Framing the scene in the foreground, as announced by the title of the work, is a group of flamingoes at the shore of a lake, birds that are still abundant in certain regions of Venezuela. Under the European artist’s gaze, this image of American nature seems almost a paradise.