What is the location of this 19th century photo of the Andes?

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https://www.cowanauctions.com/lot/sixth-plate-ambrotype-of-railroad-workers-by-r-h-vance-san-francisco-3903817

This indicates he opened galleries in Santiago and Valparaiso, Chile. Perhaps this photograph was taken "near" one of those cities?

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From this source, we see:

A Tambo in the Mountains at a Height of 16,000 Feet, Andes Mountains, 1849. Attributed to Robert H. Vance (1825–1876).

So the mountains are the Andes Mountains. Don't know how helpful this is for the location of the image, though. You see for yourself!

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Probably not near those two cities. This is a highland grazing area, I am thinking nearer to the Altiplano. I am hoping someone would recognize the shape of that mountain, which looks a bit like Illimani near La Paz, Bolivia.

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Illimani is generally if not always snow capped, plus it has three peaks. In fact the apparent absence of snow on the peaks in Vance's dag is a clue. I'm thinking up into the altiplano from the western coast of SoAm, perhaps somewhere from southern Peru down south into what is now Chile or Bolivia. In the late 1840s, when Vance was in SoAm, the borders were not so clearly defined. Some sources say Vance worked in Peru. If he operated studios in Valparaiso and Santiago, up into the Andes from Santiago would be a place to consider. Proximity bias, yes, but what the heck, it's a start. I've traveled quite bit in the region, and lived two years on the Peruvian altiplano in the 1960s, so I can say the dag's landscape rings a bell, just not a specific, clanging bell. More research required.

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