Portrature in New Spain 1600-1800

Portraiture in New Spain, 1600-1800:
Painters, Patrons and Politics
in Viceregal Mexico
by
Michael A. Brown
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Institute of Fine Arts
New York University
January 2011
__________________________
Jonathan Brown
UMI Number: 3445271
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For my parents and Danielle
iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My first debt of gratitude is to Professor Jonathan
Brown for his guidance, wisdom, and steady encouragement over
the years. As a teacher, scholar, and mentor, he is a true
role model. I would also like to thank Professor Edward J.
Sullivan, whose intellectual generosity and boundless
enthusiasm for the arts of Latin America have led me down new
paths of inquiry and discovery. I will be forever grateful to
have had teachers like these.
I wish to thank the staff of the academic office at the
Institute of Fine Arts, especially Keith Kelly and Hope
Spence. Over the years, the following have provided all
manner of academic, personal and professional guidance: Dr.
Mariët Westermann, Professor Egbert-Haverkamp Begemann,
Professor Alexander Nagel, Professor Robert Lubar, and the
late Professors Robert Rosenblum and Donald Posner. For their
financial support, I would like to thank the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation, the Council of Friends at the IFA, and the Samuel
H. Kress Foundation for a generous travel grant. A very
special thank you goes to Niria Leyva-Gutiérrez, Dr. Sofía
iv
Sanabrais, and Dr. Nuno Senos, whose scholarship inspired and
taught me and whose friendship sustained me.
The following people have provided crucial assistance
and support: Jenni Rodda, Dr. Marcus Burke, Professor Clara
Bargellini, Claire Hills-Nova, Dr. Andaleeb Badiee Banta, the
late Doro Belz, Daniel Dennehy, Dra. Patricia Díaz Cayeros,
Dr. Lisa Duffy-Zeballos, Dr. John Garton, Pamela Huckins, Dr.
Lynda Klich, Rebecca Long, Dr. Ellen Prokop, Jenni Rodda, Dr.
Jeffrey Schrader, Dr. Julie Shean, Brenda Phifer Shrobe, Hope
Spence, and Dr. Adriaan E. Waiboer. Thanks also to the
library staff of the Hispanic Society of America, the Latin
American Reading Room at the Library of Congress, the Frick
Art Reference Library and the interlibrary loan staffs at
Bobst Library and the Denver Public Library.
While completing this dissertation, I have been blessed
to call Colorado home. Dr. Donna Pierce is first and foremost
among the many people in Denver to whom I owe my deepest
gratitude. Donna, who sets the benchmark for curatorship of
Spanish Colonial art, has lent her guidance, editorial
acumen, and keen insight to many projects I have undertaken
while resident at the Denver Art Museum, including this
dissertation. The Mayer fellowship that allowed me to
complete my dissertation would not have been possible without
v
her, nor without the generosity and extraordinary vision of
the late Mr. Frederick R. Mayer, and his wife, Jan Mayer. I
will be forever grateful to Donna and the Mayers. Also in
Denver, thanks to the Alianza de las Artes Américanas,
Kristin Bonk, Ann Daley, Piper Mitchell, Kim Nochi, Ron
Otsuka, Carl Patterson, Valery Taylor Brown, Anne W. Tennant,
Patricia Tomlinson, Julie Wilson, and Margaret Young-Sánchez.
I wish to thank my grandparents, who instilled in their
children and grandchildren a profound appreciation for the
importance of education and the arts. Hilary and David
Santoni, Christopher and Leslie Brown, and Rebecca Brown each
lent immeasurable support during this undertaking. Finally, I
owe my most profound thanks to my parents, Lesley and Stephen
Brown; their love, generosity and support have known no
bounds. It is to them and to Danielle, my love and
inspiration, that I dedicate this dissertation.
vi
ABSTRACT
This dissertation charts some of the most significant
events for the development of portrait-painting in New Spain
in order to shed light on a problematic genre that is often
overlooked or misunderstood, even by scholars in the field.
The first chapter examines the corporate portrait in early
seventeenth-century Mexico, specifically the series of
canvases depicting archbishops in the cathedral chapter hall,
and the role of the painter as an arbiter of taste. The
second chapter investigates the persistence of this
established model, which was a narrowly constructed and
exclusively male tradition, which lasted a century and a
half. The third chapter discusses the extraordinary
innovations of the early eighteenth century. As a result of
many factors, including profound economic and social changes,
there began a great explosion of portrait commissions just
after 1700, especially in the previously ignored spheres of
women and the family. The final chapter deals with the
foundation of the Academy in Mexico City and its role in the
Bourbon effort to retain control over its dominion by re-
imposing artistic taste in the colony. One of the strategies
employed to this end was the importation to Mexico of a
vii
generation of Spanish artists trained at the Academy in
Madrid.
Portraiture in the viceroyalties, like the court
culture of its main government seats in Mexico City and Lima,
was inherently conservative, concerned as it was with the
shaky balance of power that defined colonial politics and
society. Once the formula of state portraiture was
established in New Spain, it remained fairly uniform because
of the inherent demands of such patrons. The first portrait
commissions were for series of statesmen; later depictions
needed to comply with and consolidate this corporate
template. In this way, portraiture in New Spain developed
differently than it had in England, France or the Netherlands
because its tradition was so firmly rooted in the repetitive
series of viceroys and prelates. Instead of developing along
the art-historical arc that characterizes many parts of
Europe, portraiture in New Spain followed a different course.
viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv
ABSTRACT vii
LIST OF PLATES xi
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER I 23
Prelates and Painters: Ecclesiastical Portraiture
in New Spain and the Artist’s Role in its Development
Chapter II 72
Portraiture and Political Trouble, 1640 – 1715:
A Tradition Ascends in New Spain
CHAPTER III 105
Artistic Tranformations and Society in New Spain:
The Rise of the Portrait 1715-1780
ix
CHAPTER IV 152
Portraiture and the Rise of the Royal Academy
CONCLUSIONS 195
BIBLIOGRAPHY 202
PLATES
x
LIST OF PLATES
1. Chapter room. Metropolitan Cathedral, Mexico City.
2. Chapter room. Metropolitan Cathedral, Mexico City.
3. Chapter room. Cathedral, Puebla (Puebla), Mexico.
4. Unidentified artist. Portrait of Fray Julián García
Ferrer, first bishop of Puebla. Seventeenth century.
Chapter room, Cathedral, Puebla.
5. After Antonis Mor. Dominic Lampson. Original before
1570. Engraving in Illustrium Galliae Belgicae
scriptorum icons et elogia, Aubert Le Mire, Antwerp
1608. British Museum, London.
6. Francisco Pacheco. Luis de Vargas. Circa 1600. From
Libro de descripción de verdaderos retratos de ilustres y
memorables varones. Fundación Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid.
xi
7. Unidentified artist. Portrait of don Antonio de
Mendoza, viceroy of New Spain. Sixteenth century, after
1535. Museo Nacional de Historia, Mexico. Oil on
canvas.
8. Unidentified artist. Portrait of don Luis de
Velasco II, viceroy of New Spain. Early seventeenth
century, after 1607. Museo Nacional de Historia,
Mexico. Oil on canvas.
9. Unidentified artist(s). Portraits of Juan de
Zumárraga and Portrait of Alonso de Montúfar, bishops
of Mexico. Cathedral, Mexico City. Seventeenth and
eighteenth century. Oil on canvas.
10. Alonso López de Herrera. Portrait of Fray García
Guerra. 1609. Museo Nacional del Virreinato, Tepotzotlán,
11. Alonso López de Herrera (attr.). Portrait of Fray
García Guerra, archbishop of Mexico. Circa 1612.
xii
Cathedral, Mexico City. Oil on canvas.
12. Alonso López de Herrera (attr.). Portrait of Fray
García Guerra, archbishop of Mexico and viceroy of New
Spain. 1611. Museo Nacional de Historia, Mexico City.
Oil on Canvas.
13. Unidentified artist. Portrait of don Álvaro Manríquez
de Zuñiga, marqués de Villa Manrique viceroy of New Spain.
Circa 1586. Museo Nacional de Historia, Mexico City.
Oil on Canvas.
14. Bartolomé de Cárdenas (attr.). Portrait of Francisco
Gómez de Sandoval y Rojas, cardinal and first duke of
Lerma. Circa 1600. Museo Nacional de Escultura de San
Gregorio, Valladolid, Spain. Oil on canvas.
15. Diego de Borgraf. Portrait of Juan de Palafox y
Mendoza, bishop of Puebla. Circa 1645. Cathedral,
Puebla. Oil on canvas.
xiii
16. Cristóbal de Villalpando. Portrait of José de Retes
y Lagarcha Salazar. Late seventeenth century. Collection
Banamex, Mexico City. Oil on canvas.
17. José Juárez. Portrait of Pedro Barrientos Lomelín.
Second half seventeenth century. Cathedral, Durango,
18. Unidentified artist. Portrait of Juan Pérez de la
Serna, archbishop of Mexico. Seventeenth century.
Cathedral, Mexico City. Oil on canvas.
19. Unidentified artist. Portrait of Diego Carrillo de
Mendoza y Pimentel, first marquis of Gelves, viceroy of
New Spain. Circa 1621. Museo Nacional de Historia, Mexico.
Oil on canvas.
20. Unidentified artist. Portrait of Rodrigo Pacheco y
Osorio de Toledo, third marquis of Cerralvo, viceroy of
New Spain. Third quarter of the seventeenth century.
Museo Nacional de Historia, Mexico. Oil on canvas.
xiv
21. Unidentified artist. Portrait of Fray Payo Enríquez
de Ribera Manrique, viceroy of New Spain. Museo Nacional
de Historia, Mexico. Oil on canvas.
22. Unidentified artist. Portrait of Fray Payo Enríquez
de Ribera Manrique, archbishop of Mexico. Seventeenth
or eighteenth century. Cathedral, Mexico. Oil on
canvas.
23. Juan Rodríguez Juárez. Fernando de Alencastre
Noroña y Silva, first duke of Linares, viceroy of New
Spain. 1710. Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico. Oil on
canvas.
24. Juan Rodríguez Juárez. Portrait of José Pérez de
Lanciego y Eguilaz y Mirafuentes, archbishop of Mexico,
with an attendant. 1714. Denver Art Museum, Frederick
and Jan Mayer collection. Oil on canvas.
25. Juan Rodríguez Juárez (attr.). Portrait of José
xv
Pérez de Lanciego y Eguilaz y Mirafuentes, archbishop of
Mexico. Early eighteenth century. Cathedral, Mexico.
Oil on canvas.
26. Unidentified artist. Portrait of José Pérez de
Lanciego y Eguilaz y Mirafuentes, archbishop of Mexico.
Eighteenth century. Cathedral, Mexico. Oil on canvas.
27. Unidentified artist. Portrait of José Pérez de
Lanciego y Eguilaz y Mirafuentes, archbishop of Mexico,
with an attendant. Eighteenth century. Cathedral,
28. Unidentified artist. Portrait of Juan de Palafox y
Mendoza, bishop of Puebla, with an attendant.
Seventeenth to eighteenth century (?). Museo Ex-
convento de Santa Monica, Puebla. Oil on canvas.
29. Cristóbal de Villalpando. Portrait of doctor don
Francisco de Aguíar y Seixas Ulloa. Late seventeenth
century. Pinacoteca de la Profesa, Mexico. Oil on
xvi
canvas.
30. Francisco de Martínez. Fernando de Alencastre
Noroña y Silva, first duke of Linares, viceroy of New
Spain. Circa 1710. Museo Nacional de Historia, Mexico.
Oil on canvas.
31. Manuel de Arellano. Rendition of a Mulatto
(Mulata). 1711. Denver Art Museum, Frederick and Jan
Mayer collection. Oil on canvas.
32. Unidentified artist. Mother Ana Maria of the Precious
Blood of Christ. Early eighteenth century. Denver Art
Museum, Frederick and Jan Mayer collection. Oil on
canvas.
33. Miguel Cabrera. Sister Agustina Teresa de Arozqueta.
Eighteenth century. Museo Nacional del Virreinato,
Tepotzotlán, Mexico. Oil on canvas.
34. Baltasar de Echave Orio. Portrait of a Female donor.
xvii
1615-1620. Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico. Oil on
canvas.
35. Unidentified artist. Portrait of Manuela Molina
Mosqueira de la Barrera. Before 1664. Private
collection, Mexico. Oil on canvas.
36. Diego Velázquez. Portrait of Prince Felipe
Próspero. 1659. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum. Oil
on canvas.
37. Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo. Portrait of Prince
Baltasar Carlos. 1645-46. Madrid, Museo Nacional del
Prado. Oil on canvas.
38. José Antolínez. Portrait of a Young Girl. Circa
1660. Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado. Oil on canvas.
39. Juan Rodríguez Juárez. Saint Rose of Lima with a
female donor. Circa 1710. Denver Art Museum, Frederick
xviii
40. Basilio de Salazar. Mass of Saint Gregory with
children donors. 1645. Church of San Felipe Neri,
Guanajuato, Mexico. Oil on canvas.
41. Unidentified artist. Isabel Rosa Caterina de Ceballos
Villegas. Circa 1730. Private collection, Mexico. Oil on
canvas.
42. Unidentified artist. María Juliana Rita Nuñez de
Villavicencio y Peredo. Circa 1735. Private collection,
43. Unidentified artist. Portrait of a Young Woman at a
harpsichord. Circa 1720. Denver Art Museum, Frederick
44. Miguel Cabrera (attr.). Portrait of Fernando Frayle
Navas at age thirteen. 1763. Denver Art Museum, Frederick
xix
45. Miguel Cabrera. Portrait of Ferdinand VI. 1751.
Museo de la Basíca de Guadalupe, Mexico. Oil on canvas.
46. José de Páez. Portrait of don Fernando Navas Arnanz.
1757. Denver Art Museum, Frederick and Jan Mayer
collection. Oil on canvas.
47. José de Páez. Portrait of Alonso Nuñez de Haro,
archbishop of Mexico. 1773. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum
of Art, Hartford, Connecticut. Ella Gallup Sumner and
Mary Catlin Summer Fund. Oil on canvas.
48. Unidentified artist. Portrait of Don Francisco de
Orense y Moctezuma, count of Villalobos. 1761. Denver Art
Museum, Frederick and Jan Mayer collection. Oil on
canvas.
49. Ignacio Estrada. Portrait of Juan Sastre y
Subirats. 1788. Denver Art Museum, Frederick and Jan
Mayer collection. Oil on canvas.
xx
50. Unidentified artist. Don Mariano Francisco de Cardona.
Circa 1768. San Antonio Museum of Art, Texas. Oil on
canvas.
51. Unidentified artist. Portrait of Joaquín Sánchez
Pareja Narvaez as a cadet. 1773. Denver Art Museum,
Frederick and Jan Mayer collection. Oil on canvas.
52. Rafael Ximeno y Planes. Portrait of Gerónimo Antonio
Gil. 1790. Museo de la Academia de San Carlos, Mexico.
Oil on canvas.
53. Gerónimo Antonio Gil. Commemorative medal. 1774.
Market.
54. Gerónimo Antonio Gil. Title page. Estatutos de la
Real Academia de S. Fernando. Madrid: R. Ramírez, 1757.
55. Gerónimo Antonio Gil. Fall of Byzantium. 1756. Museo de
la Real Academia de San Fernando, Madrid. Drawing.
xxi
56. Gerónimo Antonio Gil. Anatomical illustration for Las
proporciones del cuerpo humano, medidas por las más bellas
estatuas de la antigüedad. Madrid, 1780.
57. Gerónimo Antonio Gil. Laocoön. Illustration for Las
proporciones del cuerpo humano, medidas por las más bellas
estatuas de la antigüedad. Madrid, 1780.
58. Andrés López. Portrait of Matías de Gálvez y
Gallardo as Viceprotector of Real Academia de San
Carlos. 1790-91. Museo Nacional del Virreinato,
Tepotzotlán, Mexico. Oil on canvas.
59. Rafael Ximeno y Planes. Portrait of Manuel Tolsá.
1790. Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico.
60. Rafael Ximeno y Planes. Portrait of José María de
Rodallega. Circa 1790. Private collection, courtesy
Dallas Museum of Art.
61. Antonio González Ruíz. Portrait of Ferdinand VI as
xxii
Protector of the Arts and Sciences. 1754. Museo de la Real
Academia de San Fernando, Madrid. Oil on canvas.
62. Andrés López. Portrait of Matías de Gálvez y
Gallardo, viceroy of New Spain. 1783. Museo Nacional de
Historia, Mexico. Oil on canvas.
63. Andrés de la Calleja. Portrait of José de Carvajal y
Lancaster. 1754. Museo de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes
de San Fernando, Madrid. Oil on canvas.
64. Felipe González. Anatomical sketch, ecorché. 1800.
Museo de la Academia de San Carlos, Mexico.
65. Tomás Suria. Portrait of Matías de Gálvez y
Gallardo, viceroy of New Spain. Frontispiece. Solemnes
exêquias del Exmô. Señor D. Matías de Gálvez. Mexico, 1785.
66. Unidentified artist. Portrait of a man with
timepieces. circa 1760, Museo Nacional del Virreinato,
Tepotzotlán. Oil on canvas.
xxiii
67. Miguel Cabrera. Portrait of don Juan Joaquín
Gutiérrez Altamirano Velasco. 1752. Brooklyn Museum of
Art, New York. Oil on Canvas.
68. Rafael Ximeno y Planes. Dying Alexander. Circa
1798. Museo de la Academia de San Carlos, Mexico.
Pencil sketch.
69. Juan de Sáenz. Portrait of Fernando de Musitu Zalvide.
1795. Denver Art Museum. Oil on canvas.
70. Unidentified artist. Allegorical portrait of Juan
Vicente de Güemes Pacheco y Padilla, Count of
Revillagigedo II, viceroy of New Spain. Circa 1800.
Banamex collection, Mexico. Oil on canvas.
71. Unidentified artist. Allegorical portrait of Miguel
José de Azanza, viceroy of New Spain. Circa 1800. Banamex
collection, Mexico. Oil on canvas.
xxiv
INTRODUCTION
Prologue: The Portrait‘s Role in New Spain
In 1630, Philip IV of Spain sent word to his painter,
Diego Velázquez, who had been traveling in Italy honing his
artistic skills at the king‘s behest. Velázquez was to return
to the royal court in Madrid. The reason for the king‘s
insistence was that an heir to the throne had been born while
the pintor del rey was away, and the young prince Baltasar
Carlos needed his portrait painted. Indeed, during
Velázquez‘s nearly two-year Italian sojourn, no other artist
had been permitted to paint the king or his only son.1
Similarly, such was the power of portraiture at the Spanish
court that during his visits of 1603 and 1628, Peter Paul
Rubens employed his considerable talents for the genre to
increase his diplomatic standing among the king and
courtiers.2
1
Jonathan Brown, Velázquez, Painter and Courtier, (New Haven
and London: Yale University Press, 1986), 79, citing Pacheco.
2
Rubens himself alludes to his use of portrait painting to
curry favor during these missions in his letters. He used it
as a pretense for his second visit, during which he held
secret diplomatic negotiations with the Count-Duke of
Olivares. See Ruth S. Magurn, ed., The Letters of Peter Paul
1
The great painter-courtiers of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries were all consummate portraitists:
Raphael, Titian, Holbein, Rubens, Van Dyck and Velázquez.
Their brilliance as painters, combined with an intimate
understanding of the inner workings of court politics,
allowed them to realize works of the greatest effectiveness
when it came to glorifying their subjects. Though the genre
of portraiture was generally regarded as secondary to that of
history painting, it played an increasingly significant role
especially at court, where it was employed for political
purposes in order to consolidate the power of the monarch,
his heirs, or the highest-ranking members of court.
In New Spain, portraiture played a similar role, with
several important differences both in style and substance.
Firstly, in the place of the royal court, there was that of
the king‘s surrogate, the viceroy. Complicating matters was
the office of the archbishop, which was often in a state of
active competition with that of the viceroy. Both laid
conflicting claims to political and moral supremacy at
various points during the history of Spanish rule in Mexico,
Rubens, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955),

letters 11 and 179 in particular.
2
and both attempted to employ portraiture in their efforts to
establish political primacy. Although the heads of state and
Church were the earliest patrons of portrait-making in New
Spain, with social and economic development there arose a
demand for portrait commissions from outside these top
echelons. By the early eighteenth century, a new group of art
patrons emerged: the wealthy, often criollo (Spaniards born
in the New World), merchant class. For them, portraiture
represented, just as it had for the viceroys and archbishops,
a pronouncement of their standing in the structure of
colonial society. Likewise, institutional leaders and
academic luminaries were also portrayed at the behest of
their various corporations or universities. The vast majority
of portraits executed in Mexico during the viceroyalty fall
into one of these four categories: state, Church, society,
and institutional.
That said, however, there are numerous problems in any
effort to categorize portraiture in New Spain so succinctly.
First, there are several sub-divisions within each of these
categories, with the distinctions between each often
blurring. Examples of this might be the well-known examples
of portraits of archbishop-viceroys or those of the so-called
monjas coronadas (crowned nuns), which were often more
3
closely tied to their family‘s social status than their
religious order. There were also large quantities of
posthumous portrait commissions in which the issue of
―likeness‖ comes into question. There are also imaginary or
imagined portraits of historical or mythical figures and
saints that would fall outside of the definition of
portraiture employed in the present context. Inscriptions on
paintings with wording such as ―Retrato verdadero de San
Francisco‖ are best interpreted here as devotional
representations of the saint rather than as attempts to
capture the actual physiognomy of the subject.
For the purposes of this study, I have chosen to
formulate a working definition of the term ―portrait‖ as it
would have been understood by the patrons of the images
discussed in these pages. The foundation of such a
definition relies on the writings of the three great art
theorists in Golden Age Spain: Francisco Pacheco (1564—1644),
Vicente Carducho (1576-1638), and Antonio Palomino (1653—
1726). Their treatises, which span about a century of the
history of Spanish art, rely on earlier Italian models and
are also informed to varying degrees by the final edicts of
4
the Council of Trent (1563).3 Most commissions worked on the
premise that the artist make every effort to be as true to
life as possible, executing the sitter‘s likeness so as to
reflect his or her actual appearance. Often, however,
portraits were commissioned after the subject‘s death, in
which case the artist relied either on previous images of the
sitter or on written or verbal descriptions. As in religious
imagery, painters were also expected to respect certain
strictures of decorum. The conservative nature of portrait-
making in Spain and its colonies can be partly explained by
the influence of Tridentine guidelines, which influenced the
sumptuary laws and dress codes that were imposed on Spanish
society (especially at court) for the greater part of the
seventeenth century were a result of such guidelines.
As a general rule, the present study is limited to
likenesses of historical figures, whether they can be
identified or not. Although there are many paintings from
Spain‘s viceroyalties that bear inscriptions that begin with
3
The decision to base a definition of portraiture on these
three writers was influenced by Marita Martínez del Río de
Redo‘s fine essay ―El retrato novohispano en los siglos XVII
y XVIII,‖ in El retrato civil en la Nueva España (Mexico
D.F.: Museo de San Carlos, INBA, 1991), 23-41. The author
uses excerpts of their writings to highlight some of the
peculiarities of Spanish portraiture that were transferred
across the Atlantic.
5
words like ―verdadero retrato…,‖ to describe a central image
of the Virgin Mary, the apostles, saints or Christ himself,
these do not fit into the working definition of portraiture
that guides this dissertation. The primary function of such
works is devotional, rather than commemorative or historical.
On the Margins of the Marginalized
Of the many problems associated with the study of
portraiture in New Spain the most significant might be the
long standing attitude of many academics and non-academics
alike that this genre of painting should best be viewed as
historical rather than artistic. There are thousands of
extant portraits from the viceregal era (i.e., about 1510-
1820) that grace public and private collections throughout
Latin America, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United
States. In some cases, the pictures have remained in the
hands of the descendants of the sitters. Notable examples are
also found in collections such as the Museo de América
(Madrid), and regularly on display at the Brooklyn Museum of
Art (New York), the Wadsworth Atheneum (Hartford), the
Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Denver Art Museum. In
Mexico, the largest and most comprehensive collection of
6
portraits is that of the Museo Nacional de Historia (Castillo
de Chapultepec, Mexico City), which amalgamated several
institutional collections – most notably, the old Museo
Nacional and the Palacio Nacional - and opened in 1944.4 The
systematic catalogue (without explanatory essays or other
written commentary) was published to celebrate the Museum‘s
fiftieth anniversary in 1994. After the MNH, the most
extensive collection of portrait painting in Mexico is that
of the Museo Nacional del Virreinato in Tepotzotlán, which
opened in 1964. Its collection, supplemented with numerous
works from the Museo Nacional de Historia, was published in
the indispensable, three-volume catalogue of 1992.5
4
Bárbara Meyer and María Esther Ciancas, La pintura de
retrato colonial (siglos XVI-XVIII): Catálogo de la colección
del Museo Nacional de Historia (Mexico City: Instituto
Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1994), 9-10. Each
catalogue entry includes 8 pieces of information (if
application) in the following order: Sitter, Artist, Medium,
Date, Dimensions, Frame description, Inventory numbers,
Inscription. Jesús Romero Flores, then the head of the city‘s
Departamento de Historia, was the old Museo Nacional‘s
director and in 1940 published the catalogue of Museum‘s
collection of portraits in the seminal Iconografía colonial
(Mexico City, 1940).
5
Museo Nacional del Virreinato, Pintura novohispano
(Tepotzotlán: Asociación de Amigos del Museo Nacional del
Virreinato, 1992), 3 vols. The Museo Nacional de Arte,
meanwhile, has devoted little gallery space to the display of
portraiture and almost no pages in its catalogues to the
study of portraiture.
7
In contrast to other national schools of painting of
the same time period (such as those in England or Spain, in
particular), the state of research in the area of portraiture
in New Spain is still in its embryonic phases. Apart from
several outstanding exceptions that will be discussed below,
the field of New Spain‘s portraiture has long carried the
mixed blessing of scholarly neglect. The reason for such
oversight cannot logically be linked to any lack of artistic
merit as all the major figures in the history of Mexican art,
from Echave Orio to Villalpando to Cabrera, painted
portraits. However, historical attitudes toward portraiture
have placed this category below that of history painting,
only slightly higher than genre scenes and still life.
There is also the towering figure of Manuel Toussaint
(1890—1955), the director of UNAM‘s Instituto de
Investigaciones Estéticas from 1939 until his death, whose
active contempt for the genre is found throughout his
immensely influential writings. It would be difficult to
overestimate the impact of Toussaint‘s work; his Arte
Colonial en México and Pintura Méxicana, both written in the
1930s and published posthumously in 1964 and 1965,
respectively, continue to be the most common basic references
in field. Despite the more recent publication of several
8
important surveys of colonial Mexican painting, no volume has
yet replaced Toussaint‘s encyclopedic, often idiosyncratic
and highly subjective reference works. Toussaint‘s work
represents something of a double edged sword to current art
historians: the surveys are the product of an immense
intellect and are indispensable as references, but are also
full of dubious attributions, personal preconceptions, and
erroneous data. Xavier Moyssen‘s annotated edition of Pintura
Colonial has been invaluable in augmenting and correcting
earlier editions.6 However, Toussaint‘s outright disdain for
Mexican portraiture was not alleviated by the fact that much
of it fell into what he identified as a period of ―decadence‖
and ultimately ―debility and impotence.‖7 Toussaint‘s period
of decadence covered artists like Miguel Cabrera and those
under his influence around the middle and late eighteenth
century.
Perhaps another cause of portraiture‘s place on the
margins of an already-marginalized field of study is the
conception that there was little or no stylistic development
in the genre throughout the viceregal period. At first
glance, this appears partly accurate. In general, painters
6
Manuel Toussaint, Pintura Colonial en México, (Mexico,
D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1990).
7
Toussaint 1990, 136.
9
and their patrons in New Spain tended to stick to long-
established patterns when it came to the composition,
disposition, and dimensions of the picture. Often this may
be explained because the portrait was intended to hang among
many others in a gallery of institutional leaders such as
university rectors or viceroys. Many single-standing
commissions, however, also conform to the compositional
strictures on these highly formal portraits. Not only does
such consistency in the general characteristics of
portraiture not lend itself to Toussaint‘s arc-shaped
historical narrative of apex and apogee, it also makes the
task of dating and attributing the many unsigned works
exceedingly difficult - and understandably unappealing to
most art historians.
Exhibitions of the Portraiture of New Spain
In the past twenty-five years, several exhibitions have
helped bring portraiture out of the shadows. The most recent
to be dedicated entirely to portraiture was El retrato
novohispano en el siglo XVIII, at the Museo Poblano de Arte
Virreinal from October 1999 to February 2000. This show
brought together an impressive array of works from across
10
Mexico and was accompanied by a superb catalogue with
significant contributions from eminent art historians. The
commendable essay by Rogelio Ruíz Gomar is perhaps the best
resume to date of the development of novohispano portrait-
painting and its study.8 The exhibition and its catalogue
divide the works according to the following categories:
historical, ecclesiastical, civic, and familial. Other
exhibitions in the past have devoted themselves exclusively
to one or more of these common categories.9 The exhibition
―El Otro Yo del rey,‖ held at the Museo Nacional de Historia
in Mexico City in 1996, focused on the image of the viceroy
throughout the entire span of the colonial era.10
8
Rogelio Ruíz Gomar, et al., El retrato novohispano en el
siglo XVIII (Puebla: Museo Poblano de Arte Virreinal, 1999).
In a fine essay, Iván Escamilla González establishes a clear
sense of the social context in which such portraits were
commissioned.
9
For example, the exhibition held at the Museo de San Carlos
in 1991-1992 and published as El retrato civil en la Nueva
España (Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Arte e Historia, 1991).
This exhibition brought together 100 portraits dating from
three centuries, over 60 of which are by unidentified
painters.
10
Bárbara Meyer and María Esther Ciancas, Museo Nacional de
Historia, El otro yo del Rey: virreyes de la Nueva España,
1535-1821 (Mexico, D.F.: INAH and Museo Nacional de Historia,
Castillo de Chapultepec, 1996). This catalogue, at only 57
pages with 22 illustrations, is nonetheless one of the
foundational contributions to the study of the genre of
portraiture of New Spain.
11
However, in many recent major retrospective exhibitions
of individual artists, such as Cristóbal de Villalpando and
José Juárez, examples of portraiture are rarely included.
The recent exhibition Zodiaco mariano at the Museo de la
Basílica de Guadalupe (2004), included two galleries of
portraits, ostensibly as a historical illustration of the
main players in a significant moment in the history of the
Guadalupe in Mexico. However, the exhibition provided an
opportunity for scholars to study these portraits and led to
a significant discovery concerning Miguel Cabrera‘s Portrait
of the Archbishop Fray Juan de Zumárraga (1751, Museo de la
Basílica de Guadalupe).11
A recurring theme in the exhibition and publication of
colonial portraits is that they have been treated as
historical documents rather than works of art. One of the
earliest attempts to locate colonial portraiture in a broader
artistic context came in 1940 at the Museum of Modern Art‘s
exhibition Twenty Decades of Mexican Art, in which three
portraits graced the colonial section, including a now-famed
one of Sor Juana Iñés de la Cruz. The small exhibition Spain
11
Both the exhibition and its catalogue were admirably
produced. For the Cabrera, see Zodiáco mariano concerning
the overpainting of the Zumárraga portrait on a previous
bishop of Puebla.
12
and New Spain in 1979, organized by Marcus Burke and Linda
Bantel, also did much for the contextualization of
portraiture by exploring its various French and Spanish
influences. Perhaps the most significant moment came in 1990
with the exhibition Mexico: Splendors of Thirty Centuries
organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York,
which was accompanied by the most comprehensive catalogue of
the arts of that country to date.12 The principal authors of
the publication‘s section entitled Viceregal Art, including
Donna Pierce, Marcus Burke, Juana Gutiérrez Haces and Rogelio
Ruiz Gomar, strive to realign portraiture within the context
of the fine and decorative arts of colonial Mexico.
More recently, of particular significance for the study
of portraiture (and all other genres of painting in New
Spain) was the exhibition in 2004 of Painting a New World:
Mexican Art and Life 1521-1821, organized by the Denver Art
Museum.13 Of the 56 paintings in the show, thirteen were
portraits. The accompanying catalogue, with contributions by
scholars from the United States, Mexico and Spain, subjected
each of the portraits to a thorough scholarly investigation,
12
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mexico: Splendor of Thirty
Centuries (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1990).
13
This exhibition traveled from Denver to Los Angeles, CA,
San Antonio, TX, and Mexico City.
13
sometimes for the first time.14 The exhibition Retratos: 2000
Years of Portraiture in Latin America, organized by the San
Antonio Museum of Art and El Museo del Barrio (New York),
also added to our general understanding and appreciation of
Mexican portraiture.
In 2006, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the recipient
of the engineer Robert H. Lamborn‘s collection of viceregal
Mexican art early in 1903, staged an exhibition dedicated to
the arts of colonial Latin America and included numerous
examples of portraiture.15
14
The exhibition Retratos: 2000 Years of Latin American
Portraits, organized by the San Antonio Museum of Art and El
Museo del Barrio (New York), also added to our general
understanding and appreciation of Mexican portraiture. The
catalogue, whose entries are not intended to go beyond basic
wall-text information, breaks no new ground but provides an
excellent array of reproductions.
15
Joseph J. Rishel and Suzanne Stratton-Pruitt, eds., The
Arts in Latin America 1492-1820 (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, in association with the Philadelphia Museum
of Art, 2006). For the Philadelphia museum‘s history
regarding Latin America, see especially Rishel‘s preface to
the catalogue, xvii-xix. A major drawback of this otherwise
fine publication is that the entries are not footnoted and
some include repetitions of previous material. The later
publication of Spanish edition allowed me to correct an error
in my entry for the Portrait of the Countess of Monteblanco
and Montemar (Huber Collection, New York). The English
edition repeats the attribution to Carlos Lozano put forward
by Alexander Gauvin Bailey. I have more securely attributed
the picture to Pedro José Díaz (active 1765-1810), supported
by a comparison to his Portrait of Doña María Rosa de Rivera,
Condesa de la Vega del Ren (Thoma Collection, Chicago, IL)
and other autograph works. See Suzanne Stratton-Pruitt, ed.,
14
In 2008-2009, the four-volume publication ―Pintura de
los Reinos: Identidades compartidas. Territorios del mundo
hispánico, siglos XVI-XVIII‖ was published by the Fomento
Cultural Banco Nacional de México, with the accompanying
exhibition opening in 2010 at the Museo del Prado and the
Palacio Real in Madrid. Portraiture of the Spanish realms
plays a visible role in the publication, with examples from
the viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru situated in a broad,
pan-Hispanic context.16
The Character of the retrato novohispano
The most noticeable characteristic of portraiture in
New Spain is the remarkable compositional continuity that
spans three centuries of artistic output. Once the standard
formats for formal portraits had been established by the
early seventeenth century, artists and their patrons seldom
The Virgin, Saints and Angels: South American Paintings from

the Thoma Collection (Stanford: Rizzoli, 2006), cat. 54.
16
Michael A. Brown, ―La imagen de un Imperio: el arte del
retrato en España y los virreinatos de Nueva España y Perú,‖
in Pintura de los Reinos: Identidades compartidas.
Territorios del mundo hispánico, siglos XVI-XVIII, vol. IV,
ed. Jonathan Brown, (Mexico D.F.: Fomento Cultural Banamex,
2009), 1447-1503. The volume also includes fine contributions
on court portraiture in Spain by Nina Ayala Mallory and
Nicola Spinosa.
15
strayed very far from the norm. The earliest compositions
followed sixteenth-century Hapsburg court fashions: sitters
are presented either half- or full-length, generally in
three-quarter view, occupying a study-type space accompanied
by a coat-of-arms and an inscription. For example, the
Portrait of Hernán Cortés by an unidentified painter (circa
1600, Hospital de Jésus), generally fits the Hapsburg mold
set by painters like Antonis Mor and Alonso Sánchez Coello at
court in Madrid.
The great portrait galleries of New Spain, such as
those of the viceroys at the Museo Nacional de Historia
(originally in the Palacio Nacional) and the bishops of the
cathedrals in Mexico City and Puebla, offer a chance to study
the continuity of style because pictures from different
decades and centuries are assembled in one room together.
These portraits were intended to be displayed chronologically
though they were not always painted in sequential order.
Often, sitters were painted posthumously, and whole groups of
them were painted at the same time. However, these portrait
series maintain a remarkable continuity of style and
composition. Examples from the early nineteenth century
maintain the principle characteristics of those painted in
the seventeenth century.
16
Out of the Picture: Anomalies in Viceregal Portraiture
The scarcity of female portraiture in New Spain, at
least during the first two centuries of the viceroyalty, is
impossible to overlook. With the exception of members of the
royal family, donors of devotional paintings, and the
occasional member of religious orders, female portraiture in
Spain was likewise relatively rare until the eighteenth
century. There are several possible factors to explain for
this phenomenon, but ultimately the issue remains obscure.
First, from conquest to the end of the seventeenth century,
subjects of portrait-painting were limited for the most part
to the highest ranks of the political and Church hierarchies,
and in some cases prominent members of the regular orders.
Portraiture was not a priority for the rest of the
population. Second, a viceroy‘s tenure was limited to several
years and frequently he served while his family remained in
Spain. In many cases, however, the family did make the trans-
Atlantic voyage. There are some examples of female
portraiture in early colonial Mexico, such as the notable
case of the unidentified sitter in Baltasar Echave Orio‘s
17
exceptional bust-length canvas (Museo Nacional de Arte,
Mexico City).
Other peculiarities in the development of portrait
painting in New Spain can be identified, some of which have
no correlation in Spain (or elsewhere in Europe for that
matter). First, although horses and horsemanship were
important at the viceregal court, and an important and
enduring symbol of the military conquest of the Americas,
there is virtually no equestrian portraiture in the history
of New Spain. The singular exception to this is the curious
example by Fray Pablo de Jesús of Viceroy Bernardo de Gálvez,
Count of Gálvez (1796, Museo Nacional de Historia), in which
the body of the horse in painted in white interlace in
imitation of embroidery; only the hands and face of viceroy
are depicted traditionally.17 The horse, such as it is, is
shown executing a maneuver of the haute école of horsemanship
common in European court portraiture by such painters as
Rubens and Velázquez.
The reasons for this absence remain unclear, although
the allegorical power of the equestrian portrait would not
have been lost on most viceroys. Originally, this type of
17
The picture, which measures 205 x 200, is signed ―El P San
Geronimo, lo Raz…ó. Se Acabó el dia 20 de Octue. a 96. Fr.
Pablo de Jesus, p.to.‖
18
portrait was reserved for royalty and their favorites (such
as the dukes of Lerma or Buckingham) with their mastery of
horsemanship equated with their sovereignty and legitimacy.18
The notion that there were no artists capable of painting
horses in New Spain must be disregarded since figures on
horseback are commonly found in biombos and larger narrative
scenes. Furthermore, there are well-known examples of
equestrian portraiture from the viceroyalty of Peru.
Equestrian portraits are also found in the work of Puerto
Rican painter José Campeche (1751-1810).19
The Problem of the Portrait in New Spain
A marginalized genre, which both cleaves to and breaks
from its Peninsular influences, the art of the portrait in
the Spanish Americas has a problematic history. As recently
as 2009, an otherwise exemplary article in the Archivo
18
Michael A. Brown, ―Masters of the Horse: The Equestrian
Portraits of Rubens, Van Dyck and Velázquez,‖ (Master‘s
thesis, New York University, 1999). Gálvez and his tracery
horse are executing a levade, a highly advanced maneuver of
the Spanish Riding school.
19
Campeche‘s trio of female equestrian portraits, the
so-called Damas a Caballo (Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico;
Universidad de Puerto Rico; Museo de Arte de Ponce), which
are of remarkable quality, feature Andalusian horses
executing the precise steps of the Spanish Riding School.
19
Español de Arte began with the following sentence: ―Few
personages of the colonial period were portrayed, perhaps
because of the absence of qualified artists.‖20 Rogelio Ruiz
Gomar, a leading scholar and hardly a critic of the art of
portraiture in Mexico, has lamented that ―the painter from
New Spain shows himself overly conservative…opting for the
easy and efficient solution of the artificially arranged
draperies behind the model. All in all, these created
ambiences end up being dull.‖21 Quoting Elisa Vargas Lugo, a
pioneering scholar of the viceregal portrait, Ruiz Gomar
states that ―it is a pitiful fact that this society ‗never
dared depict its member in daily-life attitudes, and that
such rigidity spread [even] to children‘s portraits.‖22 The
language used by both detractors of the portrait in New
Spain, such as Toussaint, and proponents like Vargas Lugo and
Ruiz Gomar, indicates how problematic the material can be.
Ultimately, however, the portrait was a constructed
reflection of the society from which it emerged. While
painters such as Frans Hals and Rembrandt are universally
admired for the candor, humor and psychological energy of
20
Carlos A. Page, ―Icongrafía Antigua del arzobispo de
Charcas Fray José Antonio de San Alberto OCD,‖ AEA, LXXXII,
326 (2009), 194-226.
21
Ruiz Gomar, ―Pintura de retrato,‖ 18, 141.
22
Ibid., 17, 140.
20
their portraits, what sense does it make to hold their works
as benchmarks for those by Juan Rodríguez Juárez or Miguel
Cabrera?
Indeed, the history of the portrait in New Spain does
not follow the narrative arc of development as outlined by
Toussaint: Origins-Apogee-Decadence, hence to the denouement
of the Academy and ultimately, destruction. Instead, the
development of portrait painting was idiosyncratic,
contained, and subtle; it does not fit neatly into pre-
existing models. There are examples that suggest there was
virtually no ―lag‖ time between Mexico and ―la Madre patria,‖
while there are many other examples at the same time that
indicate the persistence of antiquated models.
This dissertation charts some of the most significant
events for the development of portrait-painting in New Spain
in hopes of shedding some light on a problematic genre that
is often overlooked or misunderstood, even by scholars in the
field. The first chapter examines the corporate portrait in
early seventeenth-century Mexico, specifically the series of
canvases depicting archbishops in the cathedral chapter hall,
and the role of the painter as an arbiter of taste. The
second chapter investigates the persistence of this
established model, which was a narrowly constructed and
21
exclusively male tradition, which lasted a century and a
half. The third chapter discusses the extraordinary
innovations of the early eighteenth century. As a result of
many factors, including profound economic and social changes,
there began a great explosion of portrait commissions,
especially in the previously ignored spheres of women and the
family. The final chapter deals with the foundation of the
Academy in Mexico City and its role in the Bourbon effort to
retain control over its dominion by re-imposing artistic
taste in the colony. One of the strategies employed to this
end was the importation to Mexico of a generation of Spanish
artists trained in at the Academy in Madrid. This chapter
serves as a bookend to the first chapter, as both discuss the
importance of the artist‘s role in bringing Spanish court
taste to the viceroyalty.
22
CHAPTER I
Prelates and Painters: Ecclesiastical Portraiture
in New Spain and the Artist’s Role in its Development
Introduction
Almost all Catholic cathedrals have an assembly hall
reserved for the members of its chapter, the council of
canons and prebendaries that served as the governing body for
diocesan affairs. In some cases, like the chapter room in
Mexico City‘s Metropolitan cathedral (pl. 1, 2), the walls of
these grand assembly halls are lined with canvases depicting
archbishops and other church luminaries. In Mexico, the
portraits of archbishops that hang in the chapter hall depict
the archbishops in half-length format from the earliest days
of Spanish colonization up to Independence, continuing to the
present day. Among many other portraits at the cathedral,
there is also an incomplete series of full-length
portraits.23 Nearly every archbishop is portrayed, including
23
Secretaría de Desarollo Urbano y Ecología, Catedral de
México: Patrimonio artístico y cultural (Mexico,D.F.:
23
those of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This
series of portrait commissions appears to have begun in the
early seventeenth century, several decades after the earliest
portraits of New Spain‘s viceroys.
The portrait gallery represents one of the Cathedral‘s
three most ambitious painting commissions of the viceregal
period. The other two are more familiar to worshippers and
scholars: the sanctuary‘s main altarpieces and the vast
canvases that adorn the sacristy. There are many other
portrait galleries elsewhere in Mexico, most notably in the
cathedrals of Puebla (pl. 3) and Guadalajara, and also in
several major parish and monastic churches such as Santa
Prisca in Taxco and La Profesa, also in the capital.24 The
one found in the chapter hall of Mexico‘s Metropolitan
cathedral appears to be the earliest of these programs
to be undertaken.
The portraits in Mexico‘s cathedral, which remain in
sitú, are arranged in chronological order in registers along
the walls. Just as the great paintings in the sacristy
present a cohesive decorative program of religious and
Secretaría de Desarollo Urbano y Ecología and the Fomento

Cultural Banamex, 1986), 289ff.
24
Vargaslugo, Elisa, La iglesia de Santa Prisca de Taxco,
3rd. ed. (Mexico D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
México, 1999), 405-418.
24
historical allegory, the portrait galleries establish the
unbroken and venerable lineage of the highest ecclesiastical
office in New Spain. Unlike the sacristy pictures, which have
attracted significant art-historical and iconographical
attention, the chapter galleries of New Spain have been
regarded largely as historical or genealogical documents of
the various church personages and thus have all but escaped
art-historical investigation.25 The fact that they were
dismissed by Manuel Toussaint, Mexico‘s most renowned early
art historian, as second rate or worse (only a few of the
pictures are signed) has contributed greatly to their
25
The literature regarding the portraiture of viceroys is
much more developed, however. For reproductions of these
works, see for example, Manuel Cortina Portilla, Veintitrés
virreyes y un siglo (Mexico D.F.: Grupo Consa, 1995), in
which each of the eighteenth-century viceroys is illustrated,
though without the biographical inscriptions, which are
cropped from the color reproductions, presumably for
aesthetic reasons. Recent studies that apply postcolonial
theory and political science to the study of the image of
the viceroy in New Spain include Michael J. Schreffler, ―Art
and Allegiance in Baroque New Spain,‖ (Chicago: Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Chicago, 2000), ch. III, 61-120;
Schreffler, The Art of Allegiance: Visual Culture and
Imperial Power in Baroque New Spain (University Park, PA:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007); and Alejandro
Cañeque, The King‘s Living Image: The Culture and Politics of
Viceregal Power in Colonial Mexico (New York: Routledge,
2004), which discusses the viceroy himself as the ―flesh and
blood‖ image of the Spanish king and provides a ground-
breaking (and encyclopedic) insight into the role of the
viceroy (and their images) in Spanish colonial political
culture.
25
scholarly neglect. While Toussaint accepts the portrait of
Fray Juan de Zumárraga as a fine painting (which he correctly
dates to the seventeenth century), he states that the series
in the cathedral, along with those in many other diocese in

26
Mexico, are ultimately of ―limited artistic value.‖
The immediate question surrounding the sala capitular,
as in the case of the sacristy‘s decoration, is why the
Church would chose to adorn two private rooms with a lavish
array of visual propaganda. While the subject matter of the
sacristy‘s decorative program in Mexico City revolves around
the triumph and legitimacy of the Church and the Eucharist,27
the portrait galleries focus on the legitimacy and virtues of
the highest ecclesiastical office (and those who held it) in
New Spain. While the chapter series in Mexico City was likely
the earliest of its kind in New Spain, its grandeur is
rivaled in several similar programs of ecclesiastical
portraiture found throughout the viceroyalty, most notably at
26
Toussaint 1990, 53.
27
The bibliography surrounding the program of the sacristy
decoration in Mexico City, and the involvement of the two
principal painters, Cristóbal de Villalpando and Juan Correa,
is considerable. For a cogent, brief discussion of the
project, see Gutiérrez Haces, Juana, ―The Painter Cristóbal
de Villalpando: his Life and Legacy,‖ in Exploring New World
Imagery: Spanish Colonial Papers from the 2002 Mayer Center
Symposium, ed. by Donna Pierce, (Denver: Denver Art Museum,
2005), 104-128.
26
the cathedral in Puebla, which likewise remains in sitú in
the sala capitular.28 In Puebla‘s case, the paintings are
also executed in oil on canvas by some of the leading
painters of the day, but they are monumental – life size,
full-length images that explicitly surpass the half-length
portraits in Mexico City in scale and splendor.
Portrait galleries in Spain, such as the ones found in
Hall of Realms at the Buen Retiro or at the Pardo palace, may
hold a clue to answering this question. These programs have,
unlike their counterparts in the New World, received
admirable and thorough scholarly attention that illuminates
both the art-historical and political significance of the
programs.29 While there are major differences between these
types of galleries – for example, the issues of succession
and allegory that characterize the Hall of Realms are not
28
Other institutions with extensive portraiture collections
include the cathedral in Durango, the church of Santa Prisca
in Taxco de Guerrero, and the formerly Jesuit (now Oratorian)
church of La Profesa in Mexico City.
29
For the portrait gallery in Spain, see Jonathan Brown and
John H. Elliott, A Palace for a King: The Buen Retiro (New
Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1980); and Maria
Kusche, Retratos y retratadores: Alonso Sánchez Coello y sus
competidores Sofonisba Anguissola, Jorge de la Rúa y Rolán
Moys (Madrid: Fundación de Apoyo a la Historia del Arte
Hispánico, 2003); and Kusche, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz y sus
segidores: B. González, R. de Villandrando y A. López Polanco
(Madrid: Fundación de Apoyo a la Historia del Arte Hispánico,
2007).
27
nearly as prominent in the cathedrals – they share a
chronological approach, a profound interest in genealogy, and
a unified set of ideas.
Similarly, some of the leading painters of the day were
employed in the endeavor at Mexico‘s cathedral, just as court
painters such as Alonso Sánchez Coello (c.1531 – 1588), Juan
Pantoja de la Cruz (C. 1555 – 1608), and Diego Velázquez
(1599 - 1660) were occupied with portrait galleries in Spain.
While Cristóbal de Villalpando (c. 1649 – 1714) executed
major parts of the allegorical decoration for the sacristy,
painters like Baltasar Echave Orio (c. 1558 - c. 1623),
Alonso López de Herrera (c. 1580 – 1675), and later Juan
Rodríguez Juárez (1675-1728) and Miguel Cabrera (c.1695 –
1768) all lent their considerable talents to extensive
portraiture commissions.30
While both the Mexico City and Puebla galleries depict
their sitters in life-size dimensions, the more opulent
ensemble in New Spain‘s ―second‖ city features uniformly
full-length compositions whereas those in Mexico City are
half-length (see pl. 4, anonymous, Portrait of Fray Julián
30
In the case of Santa Prisca, one of the wealthiest parish
churches in New Spain, Miguel Cabrera and his workshop
executed the extensive sacristy decoration and several of the
portraits in the sala capitular, including that of Pope
Benedict XIV. See Vargaslugo, 1999, 416.
28
García Ferrer, first bishop of Puebla, Puebla, cathedral).
There are numerous European precedents for such portrait
galleries, ranging from Italian Renaissance galleries of
uomini famosi to such visual genealogies as Philip II‘s Pardo
Palace portraits, and from archiepiscopal palaces to Halls of
Princely Virtue like the one at the Buen Retiro in Madrid.
The chapter room of the cathedral of Toledo is also decorated
with series of bishops, executed in both fresco and oil on
canvas.31
In addition, portable portrait ―galleries‖ also
circulated in the form of prints, such as those after Titian
by Pieter de Jode, and in compilation editions like the
Illustrium Galliae Belgicae sciptorum icones et elogia
(British Museum, London) published in Antwerp in 1608, which
features 52 likenesses of famous personages after artists
such as Antonis Mor (pl. 5).32 Two of the most notable
editions of this type were Anthony van Dyck‘s Iconography of
circa 1626-1632 (published 1645) and Francisco Pacheco‘s
31
See J. Brown 1998, 24. Somewhat surprisingly, there does
not appear to be a comparable program of portraiture in the
cathedral of Seville.
32
Aubert Le Mire, Illustrium Galliae Belgicae sciptorum
icones et elogia (Antwerp, 1608). This edition first came to
my attention while reading Joanna Woodall‘s intriguing study
of Antonis Mor and portraiture. See J. Woodall, Anthonis Mor:
Art and Authority (Zwolle: Waanders, 2007), 301-303.
29
Libro de descripción de verdaderos retratos de ilustres y
memorables varones (1600-20, not published until 1881-1885,
see pl. 6).33 In both of these cases, the editions may not
have circulated widely until after the respective authors‘
deaths (and long after the portrait in Mexico City was
underway), but they are indicative of the interest in printed
portrait portfolios at this time.
The clearest counterpart in New Spain to the imagery
employed in the chapter-hall groups is the series of
depictions of viceroys, exemplified by the (mostly) intact
groups found in the Museo Nacional de Historia and the sala
de cabildos (council chamber) of the Departamento del
Distrito Federal in the capital.34 These portrait galleries
33
Giles Hendricx acquired the portfolio, publishing the
edition under the title Icones Principum Virorum…numero
centum in 1645. See Elizabeth T. Pearson, ―Portraits after
Van Dyck,‖ Bulletin of the Pennsylvania Museum 27: 144
(1931), 47-49. Pacheco‘s ―verdaderos retratos‖ may not have
been widely circulated until the nineteenth century, when it
was published in Seville by José M. Asensio (1881-1885).
34
The MNH series is extensively documented in Bárbara Meyer
and Maria Esther Ciancas, La pintura de retrato colonial
(siglos XVI-XVIII): Catálogo de la colección del Museo
Nacional de Historia (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de
Antropología e Historia, Museo Nacional de Historia, 1994).
This catalogue, although it offers no art-historical
discussion of the works, provides the foundation of any study
portraiture in New Spain. While its reproductions are of
abysmal quality, each portrait‘s biographical inscription in
transcribed and its provenance, when available, is noted. It
is hoped that a second edition of this catalogue, with
30
are the earliest of their kind in Spain‘s American colonies,
with the first commissions dating as early as the mid-
sixteenth century.35 Commissions for Mexico‘s gallery of
half-length archbishops, on the other hand, appear not to
have been initiated until late in the first decade of the
seventeenth century.
For the most part, the compositions of the viceroy
portraits, such as those of Antonio de Mendoza and Luis de
Velasco II, are straightforward and unembellished (pl. 7, 8).
They present the sitter in three-quarter profile against a
black or dark background, accompanied by a coat of arms, and
acceptable reproductions, will be published in the future. In

addition, Michael Schreffler has also provided a brief but
cogent discussion on the provenance of the two sets of
viceregal portraits in Appendix B of his dissertation. See
Schreffler, 2000, 237-239. Two distinct sets originally
existed in Mexico City: one in the municipal council chamber
(cabildo) and the other in the viceroy‘s palace. The palace
suffered a major fire in 1692, and some of the portraits were
damaged. In 1826, both sets entered the Museo Nacional.
Today, the set on view at the Museo Nacional de Historia
consists largely of works originally in the cabildo pieced
together with a number of the better-preserved canvases from
the viceroy‘s palace.
35
The portrait of Antonio de Mendoza, count of Tendilla
(viceroy 1535-1550) is inscribed ―D. Antonius D[e] Mendoça,
1‘ nova Hispanie Pro Rex et dux Generalis, Año 1535.‖ The
inclusion of the date of 1535, however, should not be
interpreted as a strict indicator of the painting‘s date, but
rather as a documentation of the beginning of Mendoza‘s
regency. For example, the picture is remarkably similar in
compostion and execution to that depicting Gastón de Peralta,
marques of Falces which has been attributed to Simón Pereyns
and can be dated to the decade following 1565.
31
a brief Latin inscription along the bottom with the sitter‘s
name, title, and the numbered order of place he occupied in
the line of viceroys of New Spain. Despite spanning decades,
even centuries, there is a remarkable consistency in the
visual language among the viceregal images. Likewise, those
of the archbishops adhere to distinct and equally homogeneous
compositional conventions: a brief biographical text (though
longer than that of the viceroys) is included in a bordered
register along the lower portion of the picture, the physical
trappings of the sitter‘s office are clearly presented, and
coats-of-arms are prominently displayed on the tablecloths or
background walls of each image. From the earliest
commissions, however, the portraits of the archbishops are
depicted with a greater degree of luxury and grandeur than
the viceroys. Each is framed in an architectural setting
(unlike the indeterminate backgrounds in the viceroys), often
with overt (albeit restrained) displays of ecclesiastical
wealth and luxury. The inscriptions are longer than those of
the viceregal portraits, attesting to the character and
nobility of each prelate, while details in the pictures
themselves consistently point to the subject‘s piety,
intellect, and virtue.
32
This chapter explores the development and political
significance of ecclesiastical portrait painting in New Spain
and draws primarily on the central example of the sala
capitular in the cathedral of Mexico City. The imagery
represents more than a historical record of the leaders of
the Church in New Spain. Because these works are among the
earliest portraits executed in the colony, they are of
particular importance to the development of later trends of
secular and ecclesiastical portrait-painting.
The role of such seminal painters as Baltasar Echave
Orio and Alonso López de Herrera in the seventeenth century
and Juan Rodríguez Juárez (1675-1728) in the eighteenth, is
also central to the investigation of this development. The
focus of this chapter‘s discussion is on the art-historical
precedents for such works, the origins of church portraiture
in New Spain, the iconography of the sala capitular series in
general, and the political and social motivations behind the
commission of ecclesiastical portraiture. The portrait
galleries are lavish commissions which, despite the prevalent
lack of signatures, involved many of the leading painters of
the day. The visual effect of the chapterhouse, covered floor
to ceiling by life-size images of past church leaders, is
33
clearly calculated.36 Ecclesiastical portrait galleries in
New Spain, which became more prominent and more widespread
than their Old World counterparts, also took on greater
importance in terms of ritual and political significance.
The reasons for this phenomenon, and a discussion of those
responsible for such programs of decoration, lie at the heart
of the following analysis.
Office Politics: The Archbishop as Royal Appointee
In New Spain, the line between religious leadership and
political governance became blurred to an extent greater than
would ever have been possible elsewhere in Europe (with
several notable exceptions in Spain).37 Political tensions
between the viceroys of New Spain and the Church hierarchy
rose and fell as the monarchy in Madrid sought the most
effective means to achieve an intentionally unstable balance
of power in its American dominions. For one thing, it was not
uncommon for prelates to hold both the offices of archbishop
36
In the cathedral of Mexico, the chronological series of
prelates is joined by numerous additional portraits of
archbishops that almost haphazardly fill every inch of
available wall space. The reasons for the prevalence of such
portraits are also a subject of this chapter‘s investigation.
37
Bernardo Sandoval y Rojas, among others, might qualify as
an exception in Spain.
34
and of viceroy.38 The best known case of such double-duty
came to be in 1639, when the prelate and statesman Juan
Palafox y Mendoza (1600 – 1659) was appointed bishop of
Puebla and visitor-general to New Spain, arriving there
(along with the new viceroy, the duke of Escalona) in 1640.39
Palafox, who had honed his political acumen while visiting
the courts of Europe as confessor-advisor to the infanta
María of Austria, sister of Philip IV, was dispatched to New
Spain at the behest of his patron and mentor, the count-duke
of Olivares. The purpose of his ―visita general‖ (a formal
investigation) was to assess and stem the corruption that had
become prevalent at all levels of the bureaucratic
infrastructure of the viceroyalty.40 In 1642, Palafox briefly
38
Examples include García Guerra (appointed archbishop in
1609), whose portrait in the Museo Nacional de Historia makes
mention in its inscription of his occupation of both offices
in 1611; Payo Enríquez de Rivera in 1673; and perhaps the
best known example, Juan Palafox de Mendoza, discussed below;
he later served as archbishop of Mexico City and returned to
Spain to serve as bishop of Osma.
39
John H. Elliott, ―Reformismo en el mundo hispánico:
Olivares y Palafox,‖ in La pluma y el báculo: Juan de Palafox
y el mundo hispano del seiscientos, ed. Montserrat Galí
Boadella, (Puebla: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla,
2004), 13-55. See also David A. Brading, The First America:
The Spanish Monarchy, Creole patriots and Liberal State, 1492
-1867, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 228-
229; and Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform in
Spain and Viceregal Mexico. The Life and Thought of Juan de
Palafox, 1600-1659 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
40
Elliott 2004, 27-28.
35
held the office of viceroy of New Spain, a position that had
proved too much for the duke of Escalona.41 Initially, his
appointment as bishop of Puebla (the most important
ecclesiastical office in New Spain after the archbishop of
Mexico) appears to have been secondary, or at least
complementary to his political mission.
When the situation became precarious, as it did in the
years leading up to Palafox‘s appointment, the king resorted
to the deployment of a special agent, known as a visitador
general (visitor-general or inspector general), with the
authority to recommend the removal of either the viceroy or
the archbishop from power. In some instances, the king
appointed either the archbishop or the viceroy to the
position of visitor-general, as Philip IV and his favorite
the count-duke of Olivares had done with Palafox (with
predictably inauspicious results).42
The case of Palafox‘s stormy tenure was not unique. In
general, political matters in New Spain were made worse as
the leadership of the monastic orders often sought to
41
Elliott 2004, 28-29. It appears from the outset that
Escalona‘s tenure was destined to brief as Olivares sent his
own spy in the original entourage of 1639-40, an Irishman
named William Lamport, to keep tabs on the new viceroy (and
possibly on Palafox, as well).
42
See Brading 1991, 228-233.
36
undermine the precarious balance of power by challenging the
authority of the secular Church and claiming responsibility
for the indigenous population (and thus much of the rural
territory of the dominion). The creole and indigenous
populations typically sided with the secular Church because
it was seen to protect their interests. The system was
deliberately unstable; it allowed both archbishop and viceroy
the ability to claim supremacy over the realm, thus ensuring
(in theory) that the monarchy would maintain ultimate control
over its vast colony thousands of miles away.43
Under the Patronato Real, the kings of Spain (rather
than the Vatican) enjoyed the unusual privilege of nominating
the prelates in its American realms, meaning that often the
archbishops of New Spain were appointed for political reasons
beyond their ecclesiastical duties. Furthermore, some
prelates - like many figures in New Spain‘s bureaucratic
hierarchy – occupied their postings on a temporary basis
before returning to the Peninsula (or dying while in
office).44 The prevailing atmosphere of instability created
43
See John H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World:
Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830 (New Haven and London:
Yale University Press, 2006), 198-202.
44
Because the term limits of such offices were uncertain the
detailed biographical inscriptions found in so much of New
37
by the combination of these factors would be of great
significance for the development of portraiture not only in
the major cathedrals in New Spain but in setting the trends
that shaped later ecclesiastical and secular portrait
painting alike.
A Corporation of Worthies: the portrait gallery model
The general composition of the Metropolitan Cathedral
chapter series (see pl. 9), with certain artistic
embellishments, is based on that of the viceroys: they are
half-length in format, equal in size, with a brief
biographical text in a rectangular frame at the lower edge of
the picture; in most cases, the sitter and his coat-of-arms
are placed before a swag of drapery. Likewise, both groups of
pictures were designed to be displayed in halls with similar
functions: canons and church leaders convened in the sala
capitular, and city and viceregal officials met in the sala
de real acuerdo or sala de cabildos (council chamber). These
halls were not intended then (nor are they now) for public
visitors. In both secular and ecclesiastical contexts, the
Spain‘s portraiture served to ensure that the identity of the

sitter was preserved even after he or she had departed.
38
intended impact was to emphasize the legitimacy and grandeur
of the office portrayed, rather than to examine the
individual personality or psychology of each sitter. This
explains, in part, the high degree of conformity in the
composition and dimensions of the pictures. In simpler terms,
it is the office on display, not the man. Together, both
series of paintings form an organic whole, growing with each
subsequent office-holder, headed by (in his real presence)
the current bishop or statesman.45
In the clerics‘ canvases, several important additions
are made, not the least of which is bold color, even in the
earliest works. The archbishops are situated in defined
architectural settings with border moldings and swags of
drapery, accompanied by the ubiquitous coat-of-arms. Most
are surrounded by crucifixes, liturgical vessels, libraries
or individual books, pens and inkpots. Perhaps most
important, the inscriptions (here presented in a bordered
plaque along the lower portion of the canvas) are more
detailed than those of the viceroys, and typically list the
birthplace, familial origins and education of the sitter, as
45
Of course, the office of viceroy ended around 1821, while
the archdiocese of Mexico continues to this day (along with
the portraiture of current bishops).
39
well as his accomplishments and positions in Spain and the
New World.
Both the appearance of the sala and each individual
portrait has changed over the centuries. It remains uncertain
as to how the portraits were initially arranged, and when
each was added to the gallery, but it appears that the
current hanging dates from the late nineteenth or earlier. In
the earliest days of the decoration of the sala capítular,
there were far fewer portraits so there would have been no
need to stack them in multiple registers, as they are today.
Likewise, the paintings themselves changed over time:
multiple repaints, additions, and alterations were undertaken
during the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (and
likely later). Conservation analysis of the pigments used in
the inscriptions of the half-length Mexico City series shows
that the inscriptions were painted in the second half of the
eighteenth century, in some cases as later addenda to earlier
canvases. This valuable pigment analysis, specifically the
detection of Prussian blue and lead white, should not have
any bearing on the dating of the series in sitú in the sala
today.46
46
This data should not be interpreted to suggest that all
the pictures were executed after 1750. Because the repainting
40
It is significant to note that during the viceregal
era, portrait inscriptions often held an importance equal to
the likeness itself, and were restored accordingly to
preserve their legibility. Some inscriptions were repainted,
augmented or updated several times during the lifetime of the
object. As Acevedo notes, many of the canvases in Mexico‘s
sala capítular were repainted after 1750. That is in keeping
with standard practices in viceregal times.
Reading the portrait gallery in the capital‘s cathedral
as a response to those of the viceroys, it is evident that it
represents an attempt to surpass them in grandeur. The
reasons for this are fundamentally tied to the political and
ideological framework of colonial society in New Spain. Taken
individually, each painting promotes the objective of the
gallery‘s program primarily by emphasizing the authority and
achievements of the sitter and by placing his likeness in a
setting that clearly demonstrates the lineage of the office
of biographical inscriptions was widespread in New Spain, the

practice of dating portraits based on analysis of these
pigments offers little proof as to the original date of the
picture. As something of a corollary, the dates included in
such inscriptions do not always provide an accurate record of
when the picture was executed. See Esther Acevedo‘s brief but
invaluable study in Catedral de México: Patrimonio Artístico
y Cultural (Mexico City: 1986), especially 64 and note 25.
41
(with unmistakable echoes of the imagery of dynastic
succession commonly found in Europe).
The series of portraits that hangs on facing walls in
the sala capitular of Mexico City‘s cathedral is arranged
chronologically by sitter, and numbered, beginning with Fray
Juan de Zumárraga (1468 – June 3, 1548) (pl. 9, left) at the
upper left corner of the east wall. The series continues
with the later prelates on the west wall. Each is presented
in a half-length, three-quarter pose, often with a hand
outstretched, resting on a desk, or on a skull, leafing
through a book, or holding a bishop‘s crozier or a crux
archiepiscopalis.
The portrait of Juan de Zumárraga (pl. 9), Mexico‘s
first bishop, is one of the few that depicts the sitter
looking away from the viewer. Having arrived in New Spain as
bishop-elect in December of 1528, Zumárraga officially took
the office of bishop in 1530, was elevated to archbishop in
1546 (Mexico had previously been part of the archdiocese of
Seville), and served as such until his death in 1548.47 He is
47
The inscription along the bottom register of the picture
reads: ―El Illmo Sr Dn Frai Juan de Zumarraga. Natural de la
Villa H. Durango en Viscaya, primero Obispo y Arzobispo de
esta Sta. Iglesia Cathedral Metropolitiana de Mexico y llego
a ella Año de 1528, y por el de 1531 en 12 de Diziembre se le
aparecio la portentosa Imagen de N.S. de Guadalupe que
42
shown in an attitude of benediction, his eyes raised
heavenward in pious contemplation. The image provides an
effective beginning to the series as the bishop faces to his
proper left, toward the ensuing line of archbishops that
followed him. The composition reinforces his role in the
foundation of the church in Mexico, and his primary place
amidst this corporation of worthies.
The Portraits: Style, Date and Authorship
While most of the portraits in the series are not
signed and have not been attributed to individual artists or
accurately dated, many appear to be finely painted, and set
within successful, if somewhat uniform, compositions. The
assertion that the half-length series was not begun until
after 1739, which is based on a document of 1763 published by
Manuel Toussaint, is nearly as implausible as a suggestion
that the portrait of Zumárraga was carried out during the
subject‘s lifetime. The 1763 real cédula of Carlos III refers
to correspondence of 9 August 1739 between the Spanish king
veneramos. O su Templo y dio principio a la Hermita de la

Gran Sra fallecio Domingo infraoctavo de Corpus la nueve la
mañana Año de 1548 demas de 80 Años.‖
43
and the archbishop, which laments the cathedral‘s lack of
(among other things) a Sagrario chapel, a sacristy and a
chapter hall. In the case of the portrait gallery, this
document has been interpreted to mean that there was no
meeting room for the chapter in the cathedral or portraits to
decorate it.48 However, in the case of the sacristy, which is
decorated with paintings by Critóbal de Villalpando and Juan
Correa that were completed and paid for decades earlier in
1686, this document proves unreliable at best. Likewise,
painted portraits by Echave and López de Herrera are
documented in the cathedral from the first decade of the
seventeenth century. A broader reading of the 1763 document
suggests that these important rooms just had not been
completed to satisfaction by 1739. We know, for instance,
that the silver baptismal font in the sacristy was donated in
1704, and the mahogany furniture in the same room was added
later in the eighteenth century.49 In the case of the chapter
room, similarly ongoing renovations and additions also seem
48
Acevedo, in Catedral de México 1986, 64.
49
Manuel Toussaint, La catedral de México y el Sagrario
metropolitano (Mexico, D.F.: Ed. Porrua, 1973), 291.
44
likely, as well as one or more relocations over the years.
Subtle changes, such as the addition of the sitting
archbishop‘s portrait, continue to this day.50
As I have mentioned, the portrait of Zumárraga does not
date from the prelate‘s lifetime. This composition does not
bear any resemblance to stylistic trends in the New World
during the mid-sixteenth century (exemplified by the earliest
portraits of viceroys), nor to prevailing artistic tastes on
the peninsula during the same time period, which may be best
represented by the work of Titian (c. 1488 – 1576), Antonis
Mor (ca. 1520 – ca. 1576) and Sánchez Coello at the court in
Madrid and the Flemish painter Pieter Kempeneer (known as
Pedro de Campaña, active Seville 1537-1562; died 1580) in
Seville.51 Rather, the image of Zumárraga appears to have
been painted during the first decades of the seventeenth
century, about the same time as the rest of the first six
archbishops.52
50
The current overall appearance of the space today is
probably along the lines of how the room looked in the second
half of the eighteenth century. The earliest published
photographs of the room date from around 1900.
51
J. Brown 1998, 40-41.
52
The best known image of Mexico‘s first archbishop is
Miguel Cabrera‘s full-length depiction of the archbishop of
1758 (Museo de la Basílica de Guadalupe). The Mexico
cathedral portrait served as Cabrera‘s model.
45
In fact, the style and composition of these six relates
closely to the work of Alonso López de Herrera, an
accomplished artist whose training had already been completed
in his hometown of Valladolid (Spain) by 1608, when he left
for New Spain in the company of his patron, the newly-
appointed archbishop of Mexico, Fray García Guerra.53 It was
López de Herrera who provided the model for portrait-painting
in New Spain for generations to come.
Alonso López de Herrera and Portraiture in New Spain
Herrera‘s 1609 portrait of the Dominican friar García
Guerra (pl. 10, Museo Nacional del Virreinato, Tepotzotlán),
is likely the artist‘s earliest work executed in New Spain.54
The picture‘s style is characterized by what García Saíz has
described as ―precise draftsmanship‖ and a ―predilection for
53
Biographical information on the painter in Carlota Creel
Algara, ―Alonso López de Herrera,‖ Boletín del Instituto
Nacional de Antropología e Historia 41 (1970): 23-27. For a
cogent and more recent discussion of the artist, see María
Concepción García Saíz‘s entry in Painting a New World
(2004), 135-36.
54
Roberto M. Alarcón Cedillo and María del Rosario García de
Toxqui, Pintura Novohispana, (Tepotzotlán: Museo Nacional del
Virreinato, 1992), vol. 1, cat. 0207, 175. López de
Herrera‘s signature, which was reported by early historian
Manuel Romero de Torreros, is no longer visible.
46
Flemish models.‖55 Indeed, the picture is one of the early
masterpieces of portraiture in New Spain and represents an
emerging formula that developed over the course of the next
two centuries: a life-size male sitter seen full-length in
formal attire (in this case vestments), ensconced in his
study surrounded by a few pieces of furniture, standing
before a coat-of-arms and drapery. The subject is nearly
always accompanied by a biographical inscription (legible
here in the handwritten letter on the floor).56 The
bookshelves are filled with liturgical tomes, with several
volumes placed diagonally, foreshadowing a similar visual
tactic in López de Herrera‘s well-known painting on copper of
55
García Saíz in Denver 2004, op. cit., 136. López de
Herrera is perhaps best known for his copper panel depicting
the Dominican Saint Thomas Aquinas on one side, and St.
Francis Receiving the Stigmata on the other, which is signed
and dated 1639 (Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist
University, Dallas TX). See Burke, Marcus B., Pintura y
escultura en Nueva España: El barroco, (Mexico, D.F.: Grupo
Azabache, 1992), 30-31. Also signed by the master is the oil
of copper of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception that was
recently acquired by the Hispanic Society of America, dated
1640. See Joseph J. Rishel and Suzanne Stratton-Pruitt, eds.,
The Arts in Latin America 1492-1820 (New Haven and London:
Yale University Press, in association with the Philadelphia
Museum of Art, 2006), no. VI-10, 358-359.
56
The convention of the note on the floor was abandoned in
most subsequent examples of ecclesiastical portraiture,
perhaps because it lacked the clarity prescribed by the
guidelines of the Council of Trent. It reemerges in such
later society portraits as that of the Marquis of Moctezuma
(1760s, Denver Art Museum, Frederick and Jan Mayer
collection).
47
Saint Thomas Aquinas in his Study of 1639 in the Meadows
Museum (Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX).
This image of García Guerra emerges from the same
tradition as the full-length compositions executed for the
metropolitan cathedral by Baltasar Echave Orio (c.1558 -
c.1623), the patriarch of the multigenerational dynasty of
artists that spanned more than a century in New Spain. It is
unclear why Echave abandoned the series after only four (or
possibly five) had been executed. Two are signed by Echave
while the others have been attributed either to him or his
workshop – including one of García Guerra, likely by López de
Herrera (pl. 11). These pictures, which were most recently
kept in the revistador (similar to a sacristy) behind the
cathedral‘s Sagrario chapel, present the sitter in much the
same composition as Alonso López de Herrera‘s García Guerra,
only closer to the picture plane in a slightly stiffer, more
hieratic disposition. One can only speculate why the canons
decided to forego such grand commissions in the chapter room
in favor of the half-length compositions seen there today.
Space was surely not the issue; a complete roster of full-
length portraits would no doubt have fit – the Puebla chapter
is a testament to such a strategy. In Mexico City, such
grandeur may have seemed impolitic in the face of the
48
existing tradition of austerity in portraiture, as
exemplified by that of the viceroy. In any event, the half-
length format was ultimately selected as the official
composition for the archbishops. Most importantly, perhaps,
is that this composition invites a direct comparison of the
two highest, and often equipotent, political offices in New
Spain.
Origins in Valladolid: A Momentary Crossroads
In 1611, Philip III appointed García Guerra as viceroy of New
Spain, and thus the prelate served as head of both church and
state until his death the following year. At around this
time, in 1611 or 1612, García Guerra commissioned López de
Herrera to paint his official likeness for the series of
viceroy portraits in the Palacio Nacional (Museo Nacional de
Historia, Mexico City, pl. 12). While this half-length
picture is unsigned, there is no reason to doubt the
attribution by Meyer and Ciancas, especially considering very
few of the canvases in this cycle or those in the cathedrals
bear signatures.57 While the Museo Nacional picture, the
57
Meyer and Ciancas 1994, cat. 122. Because this important
but preliminary publication is not a catalogue raisonné per
49
half-length in the cathedral, and the full-length in
Tepotzotlán all conform to precise compositional standards,
the portrait of Guerra as viceroy stands out dramatically for
its implementation of archaizing models. It intentionally
looks back to the existing models of the sixteenth century in
New Spain, in particular those early viceregal examples of
the Palacio Nacional series (now Museo Nacional de Historia),
such as those of the viceroys Antonio de Mendoza, count of
Tendilla (after 1535, see pl. 7) and Álvaro Manríquez de
Zuñiga, marqués de Villa Manrique (circa 1586, pl. 13). In
this way, it utilizes the template of the existing examples
in the portrait gallery and takes on an overtly antiquated
appearance. The composition is adapted directly from the
earliest viceregal portraits in New Spain, while it
incorporates a subtle change by shifting the Latin
inscription from the foot of the canvas to an upper register
as though it were painted on the wall behind the sitter.
Likewise, the three-quarter profile of the portrait of
Antonio de Mendoza is replaced by the sitter‘s direct gaze.
se, the authors do not provide full arguments to support

their attributions. Again, there is no reason to doubt the
attribution to López de Herrera, as the style appears
consistent. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that the prelate-
governor would select a different painter for such an
important commission having brought López de Herrera from
Spain in his entourage.
50
These conventions are common in Spanish and Flemish
portraiture of the same period, including examples by Mor,
Sánchez Coello and Pantoja de la Cruz. This type of
inscription was also common in Seville well into the
seventeenth century; Velázquez‘s Portrait of Mother Jerónima
de la Fuente (1620, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid) is
among the best-known examples.
In López de Herrera‘s handling of the full-length
portrait of Guerra, one encounters a mature painter fully
conversant with contemporary artistic tastes in Spain. Until
recently, the scholarly consensus on López has been that he
was a painter of distinct but modest talent, the product of
provincial instruction and dependent on Flemish models.
However, the painter‘s early years in Valladolid coincided
with the most significant event for the development of
painting in the region: the arrival of the royal court. In
1601, Francisco de Sandoval y Rojas, first duke of Lerma,
Philip III‘s favorite and prime minister, relocated the young
king‘s court (along with its resident artists) from Madrid to
Valladolid.58 Bartolomé (1560 – 1608) and Vicente Carducho
(1576 – 1638), Florentine artists who arrived in Spain in
58
John H. Elliott, Imperial Spain: 1469-1716,
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963), 304-305.
51
1585 to work at the Escorial, became Philip III‘s chief royal
painters. Bartolomé became one of the earliest proponents of
a new naturalism in religious painting in Spain, while
Vicente, the gifted and scholarly younger brother, who would
eventually become one of the most influential Spanish
painters and theorists of the seventeenth century.59
Documents show that Bartolomé, per the duke of Lerma‘s
commission, painted an altarpiece and frescoes for the
Dominican monastery of San Pablo during the time that the
García Guerra was prior.60 Sarah Schroth has aptly described
59
Bartolomé Carducho and a group of Tuscan contemporaries
(whose works Carducho actively imported to the Spanish court)
are often called reformers for their shift away from
mannerism to a style based on natural light effects,
individualized facial characteristics, and a humanized
narrative clarity guided by Council of Trent doctrine. For
the best brief account of this period see Jonathan Brown,
Painting in Spain: 1500-1700, (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 1998), 80-81. For further examples of
artists and their works, see Angulo Iñíguez, Diego, and
Alfonso Pérez Sánchez, Historia de la pintura Española:
Escuela madrileña del primer tercio del siglo XVII, (Madrid:
Instituto Diego Velázquez, 1969), 14-46.
60
Angulo Iñíguez and Pérez Sánchez, Escuela madrileña, 33
and 46. In 1605, the duke of Lerma also paid him for a
Rosario altarpiece in honor of the duke‘s confraternity. The
fact that one of these commissions was for frescoes (painted
in sítu) demonstrates that Carducho was physically present at
the monastery, and thus likely came into contact with Guerra
and López de Herrera.
52
the monastery of San Pablo as a ―mini-Escorial.‖61 Indeed,
several of the Escorial artists, including the brothers
Carducho and fellow Italian Pompeo Leoni, also worked at San
Pablo. In 1602, Lerma‘s treasurer paid Vicente the
considerable sum of 156,200 maravedíes for work carried out
in the monastery.62 Other artists at the Valladolid court
included Juan Pantoja de la Cruz, Philip III‘s pintor de
cámara and at the time, the leading producer of Spanish
Hapsburg court portraiture. In 1603, the ambitious 26-year
old Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) arrived in Valladolid from
Italy, bearing gifts of paintings and other objects as
diplomatic envoy in the service of the duke of Mantua. Rubens
was subsequently commissioned to paint one of his earliest
masterpieces, the Portrait of the Duke of Lerma on Horseback
(1603, Prado).63
61
Sarah Schroth, ―A New Style of Grandeur: Politics and
Patronage at the Court of Philip III,‖ in Baer and Schroth
2008, 86.
62
See Ronni Baer and Xiomara Murray, ―Biographies,‖ in El
Greco to Velázquez: Art during the Reign of Philip III, ed.
by Sarah Schroth and Ronni Baer (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts,
2008), 294. Payment records dating from 1601 and 1603 show
that Carducho was at work on decorative frescoes for the
ceiling and main altar of the conventual chapel.
63
For Rubens‘ activities in Spain, see Alexander Vergara,
Rubens and his Spanish Patrons (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1999), 12-15.
53
Portrait commissions were a primary concern for Philip
III during the Valladolid years, especially after the fire of
1604 completely destroyed the Habsburg portrait gallery at
the palace of El Pardo in Madrid, which Philip and Lerma
immediately sought to reconstruct.64 Thus, Alonso López de
Herrera‘s formative years coincided with a consequential
period in the history of Spanish painting in which many
influential international artists – Rubens, Mor and Leoni,
along with the Carduchos – were active in Valladolid. During
this five-year interval, Valladolid was transformed from its
provincial position into the center of court culture and
artistic activity in Spain. In addition, because of the
Pardo‘s destruction, portrait-making (in both painting and
sculpture), played an unusually high-profile role in Philip
III and Lerma‘s patronage.
64
Magdalena de Lapuerta Montoya, Los pintores de la Corte de
Felipe III: La Casa Real de El Pardo, (Madrid: Comunidad de
Madrid y Fundación Cajamadrid, 2002), 412 and 461 (document
2). Pantoja de la Cruz and his workshop would undertake most
of the portrait commissions. In the reconstruction of the
portrait gallery (overseen by Lerma), the number of
likenesses was reduced to include only members of the royal
family, emphasizing the importance of dynastic succession in
the overall program (which included allegorical ceiling
decorations). See also Kusche 2007. In addition, William
Ambler is in the process of writing a doctoral dissertation
at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, on the
subject of portraiture at the court of Philip III.
54
In this setting, fray García Guerra, prior of the
―mini-Escorial‖ San Pablo and López de Herrera‘s patron,
enjoyed sufficient royal favor to secure the royal
appointment to archbishop of Mexico in 1608. The appointment,
approved by Philip III, would have come from the duke of
Lerma. Thus, it seems likely that Guerra‘s painter would have
been well-positioned to familiarize himself with prevailing
artistic tastes at court.65 The Duke of Lerma, after all, was
patron and protector of the Dominican monastery of San Pablo,
where García Guerra served as abbot immediately prior to his
departure for New Spain.66
López de Herrera‘s familiarity with court trends
informs his first portraits of the newly-appointed
archbishop. In the full-length version in the Museo Nacional
del Virreinato, for example, traces of Bartolomé Carducho‘s
Florentine reform can be seen in the firmly modeled physical
characteristics of the sitter‘s face, in the lighting of the
folded pallium on the desk, the richly-lit textures of the
65
It bears repeating here that unlike in Europe, where the
pope nominated bishops and archbishops, these positions in
the Spanish Americas were controlled exclusively by the king
under the right of royal patronage (real patronato).
66
Enríque Valdivieso González, La pintura en Valladolid en
el siglo XVII, (Valladolid: Imprenta Provincial, 1971), 86.
See also Paz Julián, El Monasterio de San Pablo de Valladolid
(Valladolid, n.d.).
55
folds of drapery in the background, and in the play of
shadows beneath the sitter‘s gloves. It was this Florentine
reform, whose impact on Spanish painting has been described
by Jonathan Brown as ―progressive but not revolutionary,
formative but not definitive,‖ that help characterize the
true importance of what López de Herrera brought to New
Spain.
The rather generic assessment of López‘s ―predilection
for Flemish models‖ may be based on the large number of
copper paintings in López de Herrera‘s oeuvre, which tend to
have a Flemish appearance, especially in the background
landscapes.67 However, as Clara Bargellini has astutely
noted, his images of saints are informed by a familiarity
with Italian portraiture and are portrayed as individuals.68
López de Herrera was not the only painter in Mexico City in
the early seventeenth century with a knowledge of Italian
portraiture. A recently discovered document shows that Alonso
Vázquez (c. 1565-1607), the Spanish painter who spent the
last years of his life in Mexico City, owned a complete set
of Italian emperor portraits at the time of his death in
67
See note 33, op. cit.
68
Clara Bargellini, ―La pintura sobre lamina de cobre en los
virreinatos de la Nueva España y Perú,‖ Anales del Instituto
de Investigaciones Estéticas, vol. XXI, no. 74 (1999), 85-86.
56
1607.69 Vázquez, who had been working in Seville, came to New
Spain in 1603 in the entourage of his patron, Viceroy Juan de
Mendoza y Luna, Marquis of Montesclaros.70 Likewise, scholars
continue to observe that López de Herrera deploys ―archaizing
traits probably derived from his apprenticeship in provincial
Castile.‖71 In truth, however, the visual evidence provided
by his growing oeuvre does not support such a conclusion; nor
should Valladolid be characterized as a provincial backwater
during the time of his apprenticeship and early career.72
69
Jesús Palomero Páramo, ―Las últimas voluntades y el
inventario de bienes del pintor Alonso Vázquez,‖ Anales del
IIE, vol. XXVII, no. 86 (2005), 194. Document 4, Vázquez
last will and testament, includes item 18, ―doçe o treçe
cuadros de enperadores de italia.‖ The inventory entry makes
clear that the set of portraits is painted, rather than
engraved. Other Italian pictures, as well as European
engravings, are also mentioned.
70
In July of 1607, Montesclaros (1571-1628) left Mexico
City to become viceroy of Perú. In 1615, he returned to court
in Madrid as a grandee, and later became an advisor to Philip
IV.
71
Ruiz Gomar, ―Unique Expressions,‖ in Denver 2004, 62. One
of the finest short surveys in any language on the history of
colonial painting in New Spain, Ruíz Gomar‘s essay
nevertheless retains one of Toussaint‘s models by tracing the
supposed arc of progression from mannerism to naturalism to
Baroque. López de Herrera seems altogether out of place in
the section entitled ―The Persistance of mannerism.‖ If
anything, his training and mature style would be described
best as anti-mannerist. Moreover, any archaizing trends in
his portraiture are more likely the result of the strictures
of his commissions and his patrons.
72
The Hispanic Society of America acquired a signed and
dated Virgin of the Immaculate Conception (1640, oil on
57
López de Herrera‘s Artistic Formation
There are certain parallels between López de Herrera‘s early
work in New Spain and several portraits executed in
Valladolid during his formative years. Most notably,
the full-length portrait of Lerma in cardinal‘s robes (pl.
14, Museo Nacional de Escultura de San Gregorio, Valladolid)
by another of the duke‘s protégés, the little-known Bartolomé
de Cárdenas (ca. 1575 – 1628), provides an idea of the
appearance of ecclesiastical portraiture during the court‘s
Valladolid period. Other ecclesiastical portraits from early
seventeenth-century Valladolid include that of that of fray
Juan Merinero by Diego Valentín Díaz (1586 – 1660), from a
series of bishops in the cathedral.73 Cárdenas may have been
a relation of López de Herrera, whose mother is identified in
canvas) that provides a glimpse into the artist‘s mature

years.
73
For Valentín Díaz‘s portrait of Fray Juan Merinero,
bishop of Valladolid, see Jesús Urrea Fernández, ed., Del
olvido a la memoria: Patrimonio restaurado de la provincial
de Valladolid 1997-2003: Pintura y escultura (Valladolid:
Diputación de Valladolid, 2008), 152-53. This series depicts
each bishop seated in his study, dressed in his vestments and
mitre.
58
documents as María de Cárdenas of Valladolid.74
Unfortunately, based on Cárdenas‘s extremely limited
surviving output it remains difficult to support an argument
that Cárdenas served as the teacher of the young López de
Herrera. Nevertheless, the similarities between his portrait
of Lerma and those of López de Herrera are unmistakable.
Along with the image of Lerma, an anonymous portrait of the
count of Ansúrez (Museo de Pintura de la iglesia de la
Pasión, Valladolid) fits the template employed in the
earliest ecclesiastical portraits in New Spain with its
inclusion of both a coat of arms and a lengthy biographical
inscription.
López de Herrera would have been familiar with
portraits of this type during his training in Valladolid, and
he brought the knowledge of such trends with him to his post
in New Spain. In the figure of Alonso López de Herrera, then,
one finds an artist with direct knowledge of a full spectrum
of artistic trends, from the second-tier provincial masters
in Valladolid (like Cárdenas), to highest echelon of
74
Carlota Creel Algara, ―Alonso López de Herrera,‖ Boletín
del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia 41 (1970),
23-27. Rogelio Ruiz Gomar‘s excellent recent biographical
sketch of the artist in Philadelphia 2006, 532-33, suggests
that the painter apprenticed with a documented painter of the
name Alonso de Herrera, possibly his father (who had the same
name).
59
international court painting, represented by the ascendant
Peter Paul Rubens.
With the exception of the full-length portrait of
García Guerra, López de Herrera, like most eminent artists in
viceregal Mexico, is known primarily for his religious
commissions. While a full investigation of his devotional
oeuvre lies outside the limits of the present dissertation,
any putative connection between him and Bartolomé or Vicente
Carducho, who were also primarily religious painters, should
be explored in this area, too.75 López de Herrera‘s role in
the transmission of what Jonathan Brown has called the
―quasi-official taste‖76 at the court of Philip III is
perhaps more subtle in his religious works because at this
early date in New Spain, portraiture was, in contrast to
devotional genres, in its very nascent stages.77 In terms of
the development of portraiture, I would argue that López de
Herrera‘s role appears to have been calculated, immediate,
and highly influential. Since López de Herrera‘s presence
75
A consideration of the subject of Florentine reform in New
Spanish religious painting, while firmly outside the limits
of this dissertation, is certainly ripe for future study.
76
J. Brown 1998, 81-82.
77
The influence of Bartolomé Carducho‘s religious works, as
well as those by other painters active in Valladolid, on
López de Herrera‘s painting, is a topic ripe for further
investigation, but unfortunately lies beyond the scope of the
current study.
60
among the traveling retinue of the archbishop-elect to New
Spain would have been authorized by the crown, we may infer
that the painter‘s mission was to bring a semblance of this
court style to New Spain. López de Herrera carried out this
mission by executing commissions for the church and other
religious institutions – in other words, he practiced his
craft. Furthermore, it is equally significant, at least vis-
à-vis his own artistic output, that López de Herrera may have
actively taught his techniques to other artists in the
viceregal capital, and subsequently in Puebla and Zacatecas
(where he died in the Dominican monastery in 1675).78 His
first portrait of García Guerra was begun almost as soon as
the prelate and his entourage had arrived, which suggests
that portraiture was a priority.
A comparison of the full-length portrait of 1609 and
the earliest ones in the Cathedral indicates that López de
Herrera began the sala capitular commission around this same
early date (about 1609). He may have started with that of
García Guerra, and then moved on to those of Zumárraga and
the other interceding bishops. With Echave Orio‘s involvement
in the full-length series in the cathedral having come to an
end soon after García Guerra‘s arrival (at the latest), no
78
Ruiz Gomar, in Philadelphia 2006, 533.
61
other known painter would have been suitable for such a
project. Indeed, the full-length portrait of García Guerra in
the revistador of the cathedral is most likely the work of
López de Herrera, rather than Echave.
As author of the cathedral‘s portraiture project, López
de Herrera would have imported not only his knowledge of the
tradition of Spanish portrait galleries (like the ones in the
Valladolid cathedral or that in the chapter rooms of the
cathedral of nearby Burgos or the monastery of Huelgas), but
also a familiarity with the sanctioned artistic language of
the royal court. In this way, López de Herrera laid the
foundations for a tradition of ecclesiastical portraiture
that would last nearly two centuries.
Politics of Piety: the Patronato Real in New Spain
Questions immediately arise from any discussion of the
origins of the Cathedral‘s portrait gallery. What explains
the flurry of activity in the commission of portraiture at
the first quarter of the seventeenth century? One prominent
artist (Echave) was abandoned; another emerged as the
definitive producer of the state portrait of the highest
Church office in New Spain. Why had the newly appointed
62
archbishop, Fray García Guerra, decided to include a talented
Spanish painter in his retinue? In my view, the answers to
these questions lie in part in the unusual political
situation in Spain‘s American realms, particularly in Mexico
City. The tripartite colonial political structure of New
Spain was imagined by the king and his ministers as an
extension of the monarchy, with a viceroy as the king‘s
―flesh and blood‖ surrogate, complete with a court and
courtiers. The political philosophy then dominant at the
Spanish court likened government to human anatomy, with the
king as the head of the body politic, and so on down. In New
Spain, however, it was a practical liability to delegate one
man (the viceroy) to act precisely according to the king‘s
wishes. In practice, the colonial body politic in New Spain
had two heads: the viceroy (and his council) and the
archbishop (and his bishops). Complicating matters, other
limbs of the body, most significant among which was the
regular church (the orders), played crucial roles in swaying
the balance of power. The idea was that these three
institutions would each oversee specific areas of life in the
colonies. For example, the missionary orders would complete
the conversion of the Indian population and supervise its
education and assimilation, especially in rural areas.
63
Distinctions between the responsibilities of each branch of
the colonial structure often overlapped; the practicalities
of daily governance of the rural geography and its indigenous
population fell to the friars, for example. In short, the
Spanish colonial system was characterized by an inherent
system of checks and balances that inevitably resulted in
power struggles between each of the three offices. The
rivalries between archbishops and the viceroys is well-
documented, as is that between the regular and secular
branches of the Catholic Church.79
The reason for this unstable arrangement was in part a
result of the fact that ecclesiastical offices in the New
World were designated by the Spanish crown rather than the
Vatican. This practice dates to the years immediately
following the Reconquista and is known as the privilege of
royal patronage, or real patronato. After the defeat and
expulsion of the Muslim caliphate, Ferdinand and Isabella
pressed the Vatican to grant the monarchs of Spain
ecclesiastical patronage throughout the kingdom of Granada.80
79
See Alejandro Cañeque, The King‘s Living Image: The
Culture and Politics of Viceregal Power in Colonial Mexico
(New York: Routledge, 2004); see also, Israel 1975, and
Elliott 2006.
80
See Antonio Garrido Aranda, Organización de la iglesia en
el Reino de Granada y su proyección en Indias (Sevilla:
64
Innocent VIII granted this privilege in 1486, creating the
Patronato Real that allowed the crown not only to appoint the
bishops of the recouped southern territory, but to collect
parish tithes. As Ferdinand and Isabella had hoped, Julius
II extended the crown‘s ecclesiastical patronage in 1508 to
include Spain‘s newly claimed territories of the New World.81
During the viceregal period, Spain sent almost 4,000
clergy to New Spain, many of whom were Flemish, Italian and
French in addition to native Spaniards.82 The main
difference between the patronato in the American colonies and
that of the Peninsula was that with no papal legate on hand
to represent the Vatican in the Americas, as was the case in
Spain, the crown exercised an unimpeded authority over the
secular church in the Indies. With few exceptions, the
Spanish monarch appointed the most important episcopates in
New Spain, including the archbishop of Mexico and the bishop
Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 1979); Pagden,

Spanish Imperialism and the Political Imagination: Studies in
European and Spanish-American Social and Political Theory,
1513-1830 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990); also see
James Muldoon, The Americas in the Spanish World Order: The
Justification for Conquest in the Seventeenth Century
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994).
81
John H. Elliott, Imperial Spain: 1469-1716 (London:
Penguin 1963, 1970), 101-102. The patronage was granted in a
papal bull of 28 July 1508.
82
See Henry Kamen, Empire: How Spain Became a World Power
(London: Penguin Books, 2002).
65
of Puebla. In many cases, as we have seen with Fray García
Guerra, and as we shall see with bishops like Juan de Palafox
and José Pérez de Lanciego, prelates were appointed to
offices in New Spain as much for their political acumen as
for their piety or theological erudition.
Conclusions
The program of decoration in the sala capitular of the
cathedral of Mexico, although comprised of individual images,
functions as an organic whole, representing the solemnity,
grandeur and authority of the office of archbishop. There
is, by design, little emphasis on the individual psychology
of the sitters; rather, personal attributes such as piety and
charity are conveyed via demonstrative conventions (for
example, Zumárraga with eyes raised heavenward). Among the
portraits themselves in the cathedral in Mexico, only that of
Palafox does not include an architectural frame above the
sitter. The framing device (visible in both top and bottom of
each image) serves to define the sitter‘s space as though he
is seen through a window or arcade. This practice, common in
Flemish and Dutch portraiture of the seventeenth century,
became popular in Spain through the work of resident Flemish
66
painters and native masters like Murillo and was likely
disseminated throughout the artistic centers of the New World
via engraved portraiture.83 I have argued that the series of
portraits in the sala capitular of the Cathedral was begun
around 1610 by the archbishop Friar García Guerra, with the
approval (if not at the suggestion) of the duke of Lerma, and
the initial work carried out by Guerra‘s painter, Alonso
López de Herrera. This series probably replaced the full-
length series begun by Baltasar Echave Orio to better reflect
the existing tradition of the viceroy portraits. Echave, who
died in 1623, was the most prominent painter in New Spain at
the turn of the seventeenth century. The precise reasons for
Echave‘s abandonment of the series are not known, but the
break in the lineage corresponds to López de Herrera‘s
arrival in Mexico City. The new series adopts the half-length
arrangement employed in the state portraiture of the
83
For new evidence regarding the export of paintings related
to Murillo, see Sofía Sanabrais, ―The influence of Murillo in
New Spain,‖ The Burlington Magazine 147 (2005), 327-330. Juan
Simón Gutiérrez, a Sevillian follower of Murillo, shipped
thirty-three devotional pictures to New Spain in 1678.
Though there were no portraits in this shipment, a painting
by Juan Rodríguez Juárez in the Mayer collection (Denver, CO)
incorporates a copy of Murillo‘s well-known composition of
Saint Rose of Lima (Madrid, Museo Lázaro Galdiano). This work
is discussed below.
67
viceroys, thereby creating a direct visual and iconographical
parallel between the two sets of portraits.
If Lerma had anything to do with the plans for the
gallery, he certainly would have understood the power of
portraiture at the time, having himself recently commissioned
the life-size equestrian portrait by Peter Paul Rubens (1603,
Prado, Madrid) and the one in eccelesiastical garb in his
role as cardinal, by Cárdenas. As with Lerma‘s equestrian
portrait, like that of the count-duke of Olivares on
Horseback by Velázquez (1638, Prado, Madrid), the impressive
series of archbishops was commissioned in an atmosphere of
growing political adversity vis-à-vis the viceroy. It was at
this stage of the early seventeenth century that a mounting
power struggle emerged between the two highest offices in New
Spain; it was not long before it came to a head in 1624. This
struggle continued well into the eighteenth century, and
required reform-minded prelates such as García Guerra,
Palafox, or José Pérez de Lanciego carry not only
ecclesiastical and intellectual weight, but also considerable
political cunning. These characteristics are reflected in
the portraits of those who held the highest Church office in
New Spain.
68
Primarily, the most sought-after painters of the day
(or members of their workshops) carried out the most
important portraits of bishops and high-ranking prelates.
While many of the canvases that line the walls of chapter
rooms in Mexico City or Puebla remain anonymous, they are of
such quality – and enough bear signatures of leading artists
– to suggest that such commissions were not carried out by
second or third-rate painters. In Mexico City, Alonso López
de Herrera left his imprimatur on the series by executing
some of the earliest portraits, thereby setting the example
for those artists that followed. His full-length portrait,
and those early efforts by Echave Orio, also helped form the
foundation of the series of paintings in the chapter room in
Puebla, which carried the grandeur of the archiepiscopal
image one step further. Perhaps to an even greater degree
than the Mexico series, the one in Puebla‘s cathedral
exhibits many of the hallmarks of the prevailing taste of the
court of Philip III and his favorite, the duke of Lerma.
However, the half-length concept employed in the capital
reflects a direct response to the official imagery of the
viceroy.
Both the set of ecclesiastical portraits and those of
the viceroys occupy the corporate meeting halls of the two
69
most powerful branches of the colonial infrastructure. Each
prelate, then, from Zumárraga (see pl. 9) through to the
current sitting archbishop, would be present when the chapter
convened. The honors, familial nobility, extraordinary
achievements and ecclesiastical titles are all documented in
the clearly legible text of the inscriptions. In Puebla,
Diego de Borgraf‘s sumptuous depiction of Palafox y Mendoza
(pl. 15) is a tour de force that successfully balances the
iconic solemnity of the office (represented in the physical
presence of the man) with a deliberately brilliant richness
of color and texture. Each object in the painting serves to
commemorate the most significant facets of his character: the
mitres of three different dioceses (ecclesiastical
authority), the tome on the desk of his Historia real sagrada
(intellectual authority),84 the baton of command on the table
(political and military authority in his role as viceroy and
visitor-general), the crucifix and the Christ-child statuette
(faith and compassion), the book of hours in his left hand
(private devotion), and the embroidered coat-of-arms on the
84
Juan Palafox y Mendoza, Historia real sagrada: luz y
principes y suditos (Puebla, 1643). 1661 edition in the
collection of the Library of Congress. For a discussion of
images of Palafox, see Julie Shean, Models of Virtue: Images
and Saint-Making in Colonial Puebla (1640-1800) (New York:
New York University/UMI, 2007), especially 190-231.
70
velvet desk-cover (nobility). These aspects combine to
emphasize and confirm the esteem and authority of the
individual and his place in this corporation of worthies.
71
Chapter II
Portraiture and Political Trouble, 1640 – 1715:
A Tradition Ascends in New Spain
Introduction
Just as Alonso López de Herrera provided the strongest
early model for formal portraiture in New Spain, artists such
as Diego de Borgraf, José Juárez, and Cristóbal de
Villalpando each contributed to the advancement of the
tradition (see pl. 15, 16, 17). In the mid-seventeenth
century the realm of the painted portrait continued to be
limited mainly to the highest ranking church and royal
officials.85 The limited size of this client base meant that
most painters dedicated their artistic energy to religious
and devotional subjects.
85
Most notable among the exceptions to this rule is the
masterful female donor portrait by Baltasar Echave Orio (c.
1600, México, D.F., Museo Nacional de Arte), discussed in
Chapter 3. See Ruiz Gomar, ―Unique Expressions,‖ in Pierce
2004, 51.
72
However, the conflicts between bishops and viceroys
intensified throughout the seventeenth century, and
especially during the second half of the century, portraits
of churchmen appear to have proliferated, commissioned for
various religious institutions and individuals, thereby
extending the reach of the patron‘s presence. Of course, the
next generations of artist continued to add to the series of
archbishops in the cathedral in Mexico City. It appears that
the series of full-length archbishops was resumed around mid-
century by Sebastián López de Arteaga with his Portrait of
Fernando de Manzo y Zuñiga (cathedral, Mexico City; tenure
1627–1634). Juan Salguero and Juan Correa continued this
series, with their respective portraits of Juan de Mañozca y
Zamora (1643-1650) and Alonso de Cuevas y Davalos (1664-
1665).86 Meanwhile, by mid-century, the canons of the
cathedral in Puebla had begun a succession of bishop
portraits in full-length, to hang in the chapter room. This
program of decoration marks an important shift in the
86
Ibid., 290. This picture is signed, The figure of López de
Arteaga is one of the most significant and perplexing of the
seventeenth century. A study of his life and work is long
overdue. He appears to have trained in Seville, perhaps in
the circle of Francisco Pacheco, before traveling to New
Spain. The recent cleaning of his Apparition of Archangel
(Denver Art Museum) has revealed a tremendous talent and a
technique and palette aligned with early seventeenth-century
mannerist trends in Sevilla.
73
portrait gallery in New Spain: each sitter was painted on the
monumental scale of López de Herrera‘s García Guerra,
seemingly in competition not only with the viceroy, but also
the archbishops of Mexico.
For example, Diego de Borgraf‘s depiction of Juan de
Palafox y Mendoza in the Puebla chapter hall (pl. 15) is a
tour de force that successfully balances the solemnity of the
office (represented in the physical presence of the man) with
a deliberately brilliant richness of color and texture.87
Each object in the painting serves to commemorate the most
significant facets of his character: the mitres of three
different dioceses (ecclesiastical authority), the tome on
the desk of his Historia real sagrada (intellectual
authority),88 the baton of command on the table (political
87
Fernando E. Rodríguez-Miaja, Diego de Borgraf: Un destello
en la noche de los tiempos. Obras pictóricas (Puebla:
Patronato Editorial para la Cultura, Arte e Historia de
Puebla, 2000), 230. The inscription is transcribed: ―El
Excelentísimo y Venerable Siervo de Dios Señor Don Juan de
Palafox y Mendoza, nono Obispo de los Ángeles, Capellán y
Limosnero mayor de la Serenísima Emperatriz María infanta de
España: Electo Arzobispo de México: del Consejo de su
Majestad, en el Reino de las Indias y Supremo de Aragón;
visitador general, Virrey, Gobernador y Capitán General de
esta Nueva España. Se retrató de edad de 43 años en el de
1649.‖
88
Juan Palafox y Mendoza, Historia real sagrada: luz y
principes y suditos (Puebla, 1643). 1661 edition in the
collection of the Library of Congress. See also Shean 2007,
216-231.
74
and military authority in his role as viceroy and visitor-
general), the crucifix and the Christ-child statuette (faith
and compassion), the book of hours in his left hand (private
devotion), and the embroidered coat-of-arms on the velvet
desk-cover (nobility). The iconography of the portrait
effectively conveys the grandeur of the office and the
legitimacy of Palafox‘s tenure.
Towards the end of the century, portraits of figures
other than bishops and viceroys begin to appear, such as the
Portrait of El Capitán don José de Retes y Lagarcha Salazar
by Cristóbal de Villalpando (pl. 17, collection of Banco
Nacional de Mexico). It is curious that Villalpando appears
to have painted so few portraits; however, his dynamic,
idiosyncratic style was perhaps better suited to monumental
Biblical scenes and history paintings, rather than a genre
dictated by strictures of decorum.89 In this portrait,
Villalpando allows his kinetic style to surface in passages
like the drapery and the fold threads of its fringe; in the
89
Two portraits, both male, are known by Villalpando: don
José de Retes y Lagarcha (Banco Nacional de México) is signed
at lower left and dates from around 1690; and don Francisco
de Aguiar y Seixas y Ulloa (La Profesa, Mexico), bishop of
Guadalajara, Michoacán, and archbishop of Mexico, also signed
by the master. See Juana Gutiérrez Haces, et al., Cristóbal
de Villalpando ca. 1649-1714: catálogo razonado (Mexico,
D.F.: Fomento Cultural Banamex, 1997), cats. 74 and 99.
75
sitter‘s face, the artist eschews idealized features in favor
of an unapologetic naturalism. Still, the subject conforms to
the existing tradition, and no hint of the sitter‘s
personality or psychology is permitted to show. Despite the
captain‘s impassive gaze, the iconography of Villalpando‘s
portrait provides abundant insight into the sitter‘s
character. His authority is alluded to by the silver-hilted
walking stick, his nobility by insignia and medal of the
order of Santiago, and his piety and philanthropy by the
―Nombre de María‖ volume under his hat, which refers to the
convent he founded.90 The skull on the table next to him
provides a constant reminder of the brevity of human
existence and the key to understanding the function of this
picture. While the sitter may appear unmoving, dour,
constrained by the stricture of the portraiture tradition,
the skull makes clear that this likeness only conveys the
impermanent physical appearance of Retes y Lagarcha. The
90
The inscription is transcribed: ―El Capitán Don Joseph de
Retes Largarcha Zalasar, cavallero profeso del orden de Sr
Santiago; natural de la villa de Arciniega en el señorio de
Viscaya; apartador general del oro y de la plata en esta
Nueva España. Enpeso a su costa iglesia y convento del
dulcísimo Nombre de María. Glorioso S. Bernardo Abad: en
vientiseis de Abril, cuya primera piedra se puso a
veinticuatro de Junio Domingo infra octav de Corpus Christi,
del año de mil seicientos y ochenta y cinco. Murió en dicho
año…Amen.‖
76
qualities that mattered most in Spanish society were not
transient but everlasting: the noble Christian life consisted
of both contemplative and active parts, salvation being
achieved through both faith and good works (such as founding
a convent). In this sense, the image of Retes y Lagarcha is
an ideal, post-Tridentine portrait, brilliantly painted and
imbued with intellectual complexity.
The end of the century, and the beginning of the
eighteenth, marked a transitional phase in which the figure
of Juan Rodríguez Juárez (and to a lesser extent, his brother
Nicolás) comes to dominate the realm of portrait-painting in
New Spain. Rodríguez Juárez, who demonstrated a staggering
talent during his career, might be seen as a bookend to the
earlier contributions of López de Herrera to the development
of portraiture, and something of a bridge figure whose career
spanned the Spanish succession from the Hapsburg to the
Bourbon dynasty.
The Cathedral as Theatre of Political Conflict
The peculiar nature of the office of viceroy
necessitated the placement of an adroit statesman in the
office of archbishop. Theoretically and legally, the viceroy
77
was the physical representative of the monarch in absentia in
New Spain and as such, held the same powers, responsibilities
and privileges of the sovereign in Madrid. Indeed, as
Alejandro Cañeque has pointed out, the viceroy would never
have had viewed ―himself as a mere royal agent or as an
administrator or bureaucrat.‖91 However, in the event that
the office or person of the viceroy should exceed his
authority, there were numerous checks inserted into the
political structure intended to define and limit the powers
of the king‘s surrogate. Beyond the councilors of the royal
audiencia, the municipal cabildo in the capital, and the
cathedral chapter, there was also the special delegation of
visitor-general. From time to time, especially during times
of political rivalry or unrest, the king would dispatch an
agent with the authority to investigate the viceroy and his
council and recommend appropriate courses of action.
One of the most remarkable incidents of a bitter power
struggle between the viceroys and the bishops occurred in
1624, when the archbishop, Juan Pérez de la Serna, was ousted
by the viceroy (the marqués de Gelves) and the audiencia and
ordered to return to Spain (pl. 18, cathedral, Mexico
91
Cañeque 2004, 26.
78
City).92 Seeking refuge in the choir of the conventual
church of San Juan de Teotihuacán, de la Serna resisted
capture at the hands of viceroy‘s men, holding them at bay by
brandishing a consecrated Host. The populace declared its
allegiance to the archbishop by rioting in the capital the
following day. The conflict was resolved by the removal from
power of the viceroy, the marqués de Gelves (pl. 19,
anonymous, circa 1621, Museo Nacional de Historia, Mexico)
rather than Pérez de la Serna. Though the final outcome of
this conflict appears to represent a moral victory for the
ecclesiastical elite, it more accurately reflects a suitable
end for an unsuitably autocratic governor who had worn out
his political welcome in three short years. In the end,
however, it was not an enduring shift of power in favor of
the archiepiscopal see, as the young Philip IV (undoubtedly
following the recommendation of the count-duke of Olivares)
immediately replaced Gelves with Rodrigo Pacheco y Osorio,
marqués de Cerralvo (pl. 21, anonymous artist, Museo Nacional
de Historia, Mexico), whose tenure was the longest (1624-
1635) of any viceroy of seventeenth-century New Spain.
The rivalry between the viceroys and the ecclesiastical
elite reached a peak in 1646 when bishop Juan de Palafox y
92
Cañeque 2004, 79-80.
79
Mendoza was appointed to the position of visitor-general by
Philip IV. Originally, Palafox had been sent to New Spain as
the bishop of Puebla, to act as an agent of reform who would
help carry out the new policies of the count-duke of
Olivares. It seems his fate was tied to that of his
protector, Olivares, who was dismissed as valido in 1643.
Palafox‘s visita (investigation) both exposed and exacerbated
a growing rift between the secular and ecclesiastical
authorities that reached as far as the ranks of local
alcaldes and parish priests.93 Palafox, scholar, active
patron of the arts and founder of the greatest library in New
Spain, was a skilled politician and courtier, and was held in
esteem by Philip IV. His recommendations to the king, based
on the findings of his investigation, evidently were at odds
with the interests of both the Jesuits and the viceroy, the
conde de Salvatierra, who quickly allied against him. When
Salvatierra took military action against him in 1647, Palafox
abandoned Puebla and went into hiding to escape almost
certain assassination at the hands of the viceroy‘s
militia.94 Even if some of the finer details of this story
93
Cañeque 2004, 218.
94
Jonathan Israel, Race, Class and Politics in Colonial
Mexico, 1610-1670 (London: Oxford University Press, 1975),
130-165.
80
are apocryphal, the incident is a testament to the political
threat that Palafox posed to an adversarial viceroy.95
Frequently, the cathedral served as the central stage
for archbishops and viceroys to act out their political
rivalries. Seemingly minor breaches of etiquette were
recorded regularly from the later sixteenth century on, as
each of the two powers attempted to elicit obeisance from the
other. At stake was more than mere social status:
considerations of political power and royal favor (not to
mention economic considerations) also fit into the equation.
Another telling example is found in the official dealings
between archbishop Enríquez de Rivera (pl. 21, Museo Nacional
de Historia; pl. 22, cathedral, chapter hall, Mexico) and the
viceroy, the marquis of Mancera. Strained further by the
viceroy‘s position in favor of the regular orders in
opposition of the archbishop, the bitterness of their ill-
tempered relationship reached almost comical heights by 1669.
Enríquez halted his usual visits to the viceregal palace and
broke off all communications between the two offices.
95
As discussed below, José de Lanciego y Eguilaz in the
early eighteenth century was another reform-minded archbishop
whose policies and publications caused irritation with the
office of the viceroy. In particular, his sympathetic stance
regarding the welfare of the indigenous population aligned
him with the regular orders (he was a Benedictine himself),
which threatened the viceroy‘s political power.
81
Writing to the queen regent, Mariana of Austria (Philip IV
had died in 1665), the viceroy reported that the archbishop‘s
behavior had caused ―the scandal of the populace.‖96 Even
more effective was the archbishop‘s open opposition of
viceregal authority while celebrating Mass at the cathedral
in front of crowds during feast days and processions. The
prelate refused to show proper deference to the viceroy
during the ceremony by violating the understood conventions
of etiquette, clearly indicating his unwillingness to
recognize the viceroy‘s primacy in the colonial power
structure.97
The significance of the cathedral‘s central role in
these disputes is reflected in the decoration in the
chapterhouse. The meeting halls of the municipal council
(cabildo) and the royal palace (in the sala del Acuerdo) were
both adorned with the likenesses of the viceroys stretching
back to Antonio de Mendoza (in office 1535-1550). The viceroy
represented the king more powerfully as the head of the
political body of the audiencia (consisting of oidores, civil
magistrates) than as a mere individual. As Cañeque shows, the
96
Cañeque 2004, 138. From letters of 29 October 1669
(Enríquez de Rivera to Mancera) and 26 January 1670 (Enríquez
de Rivera to the queen regent).
97
Ibid. 2004, 139.
82
audiencia was often addressed as ―Muy Poderoso Señor‖ as
though it were a single entity.98 With this in mind, the
proceedings in the sala de real Acuerdo, the chamber where
the viceroy met his council, took on a performative nature.
The viceroy would sit under a canopy with the royal seal and
the king‘s portrait, surrounded on the walls of the chambers
by portraits of Hernán Cortés, Charles V, and all the
preceding viceroys.99 The antiquity and authority of the
office of viceroy were established in these portrait series,
and the series of bishops were intended as a visual response
to this model, even though the office itself predated that of
viceroy.100 Like the viceregal portraits, those in the sala
capitular of the cathedral sought to remind their viewers of
98
Alejandro Cañeque, ―Imaging the Empire: The Visual
Construction of Royal Authority in Habsburg New Spain,‖
(lecture at University of Pennsylvania, November, 2006). The
author cites seventeenth-century Spanish philosopher Juan de
Madariaga‘s treatise Del Senado y su príncipe (Valencia,
1617), 96.
99
Cañeque 2006. The author cites Isidro Sariñana‘s well-
known account in Llanto del Occidente en el ocaso del más
claro sol de las Españas. Fúnebres deomstraciones que hizo,
pira real que erigió en las exequias del rey, N. Señor, D.
Felipe IIII el Grandeel…marqués de Mancera, virrey de la
Nueva España (Mexico, 1666), folio 14. Document of 4 June
1664, Archivo General de Indias, Mexico 77, no. 38c.
100
Fray Juan de Zumárraga, the first bishop (and later
archbishop) of Mexico, began his 21-year episcopacy in 1527,
while the first viceroy (Mendoza) was not sent to New Spain
until 1535.
83
the authority of the office, the lineage and grandeur of the
sitters themselves, and the bishops‘ noble Spanish heritage.
Archbishop Lanciego and Juan Rodríguez Juárez (1675-1728)
The conflict between the secular elite and the Catholic
Church did not end with the seventeenth century. Two of the
most significant historical figures of the early eighteenth
century, the duke of Linares (pl. 23, Museo Nacional de Arte,
Mexico) and Archbishop José Pérez de Lanciego y Eguilaz y
Mirafuentes (pl. 24, Denver Art Museum, Frederick and Jan
Mayer collection) also engaged in an open dispute over the
supremacy their respective offices. Once again, the cathedral
became the arena for their dispute and portrait commissions
appear to have played a particularly important role.
No individual figure dominates the chapter hall in the
Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico as does that of José Pérez
de Lanciego y Eguilaz y Mirafuentes (1665—1728), who was
named archbishop in 21 March 1714. There are no fewer than
three likenesses of the sitter in the chapter hall, and
several others elsewhere. This is remarkable because his
visual presence in the room seemingly overshadows that of
such luminaries as Juan de Palafox y Mendoza. Among the
84
images of Lanciego is the half-length, state portrait, by
Juan Rodríguez Juárez, that remains in sitù amongst the full
series of similarly-composed representations of the
archbishops of Mexico in the sala capitular of the cathedral
(pl. 25). A full-length canvas hangs near the entryway of the
same room (pl. 26), along with a half-length double portrait
of the archbishop and a secondary sitter (pl. 27). Although
this double portrait relies heavily on the earlier works by
Rodríguez Juárez, it does not appear to have been executed by
the master himself. Another picture of Lanciego, in which the
sitter occupies an oval frame and is accompanied by a
biographical inscription, is now in the collection of the
Museo Nacional del Virreinato in Tepotzotlán. A further
likeness, signed by Rodríguez Juárez and evidently
commissioned for export to Spain, exists in the parish church
in Viana (Navarra, Spain), Lanciego‘s birthplace.101
The most ambitious portrait of archbishop Lanciego y
Eguilaz is Juan Rodríguez Juárez‘s sumptuous, life-size
canvas in which the prelate is shown with a second sitter,
perhaps a family member or attendant (pl. 24, Denver Art
101
The deteriorated condition of the Viana picture makes it
difficult to make any judgments as far as the authenticity of
the work, though it must have originated in the Rodríguez
Juárez workshop and bears his signature.
85
Museum, Mayer collection).102 In both this work and the half-
length in the cathedral, the archbishop is shown accompanied
by the appurtenances specific to his office: the miter and
pallium rest on the desk to his proper right while the crux
archiepiscopalis is arranged so that the crucifix faces him
in liturgical accordance.103 Lanciego, whose head is covered
by a black skull cap, holds a four-cornered biretta in his
left hand and wears a gold pectoral cross over a hooded
crimson mozzetta, the long train of which extends over his
chapterhouse seat. In the background stands a slightly
younger male figure, shown dressed in black with a white
102
The painting is inscribed at left (in the cartouche): ―El
Yllmo y Rmo Sor Dn Fr Joseph Perez de Lanciego y Eguilaz: hijo
professo, y dos veces Abad del Rl Monasterio de Sta Mria de
Naxera Predicador de las dos Mos Carlos II y Philip V
Calificador de la Suprema y Genl Inquisición Arçobispo de
México electo en 21 de Mayo del año de 1713 Consagrada en 4
de Noviembre de 1714.‖ Transcription: ―El ilustrísimo y
reverendísimo señor don fray José Pérez de Lanciego y
Eguilaz: hijo profeso, y dos veces abad del real monasterio
de Santa María de Nájera, predicador de las dos monarcas
Carlos II y Felipe V, calificador de la suprema y general
inquisición, arzobispo de México electo en 21 de mayo del año
de 1713, consagrada en 4 de noviembre de 1714.‖ [The most
illustrious and most reverend señor don fray José Pérez de
Lanciego y Eguilaz: legitimate son and twice abbot of the
Royal Monastery of Santa María de Nájera; official preacher
to the two monarchs Charles II and Philip V; inspector of the
supreme general Inquisition; archbishop of Mexico, elected 21
May of the year 1713, consecrated on 4 November of 1714].
103
This portable crucifix was typically carried in front of
the archbishop during religious celebrations, and according
to liturgical guidelines was to face the prelate, as is shown
in this portrait.
86
clerical collar in the midst of lifting an armful of heavy
green drapery. On the back wall of the interior is an
escutcheon in low relief depicting the Assumption of the
Virgin; the emblem is a reference to the Benedictine
monastery of Santa María de la Asunción in Nájera (outside
Logroño, capital of La Rioja), of which Lanciego served as
abbot on two occasions prior to his arrival in New Spain.104
In this image, the archbishop‘s attire is consistent
with the type of dress worn during the performance of state
or administrative duties, rather than sacred functions such
as Mass. Likewise, in the half-length portrait, his dress is
that of the ―ecclesiastic statesman.‖ The appearance not only
reflects the function of the hall that the portrait occupies,
but also the function of the picture itself: while liturgical
objects and religious iconography appear in the picture, the
prelate is shown in his capacity as administrative head of
the Church.
Pérez de Lanciego‘s nomination to archbishop of Mexico
was consecrated in November 1714 in a ceremony presided over
104
Oraciones Funerales en las solemnes exequias del Illmo. y
Rmo. S. D. Fr. Joseph de Lanciego y Eguilaz…, (Mexico, Joseph
Bernardo de Hogal: 1728), 44. Original, Biblioteca Nacional,
Madrid; microfilm Library of Congress, Washington, D.C, HA-M
Reel 22-2.
87
by the bishops of Oaxaca, Michoacán, and Guadalajara.105 In
the Denver picture, the archbishop is presented not only as a
leader of the church, but also as a statesman in the colonial
government of New Spain. As the nephew of a Spanish cardinal
and the governor of the province of Badajoz, Lanciego was no
stranger to the worlds of political and ecclesiastical
hierarchy. The Denver portrait was most likely commissioned
between the prelate‘s initial arrival in Mexico City in
January 1713 and his ceremonial entry into the capital (a
procession traditionally accompanied by much pageantry) on
December 8, 1714.106
Juan Rodríguez Juárez had by this point become the
leading portraitist in New Spain, and it would have been
desirable for the archbishop to retain the services of such a
prestigious painter. Born in Mexico in 1675, Rodríguez Juárez
had established his position by successfully executing
portrait commissions from Philip V of Spain in 1701 and the
king‘s viceroy, the Duke of Linares, in 1711. Some
indication of the artist‘s social status and wealth is
105
Gaceta de Mexico, March 1722.
106
Lanciego‘s episcopate was officially ratified by papal
bull in the presence of the bishops of Michoacán,
Guadalajara, and Oaxaca on November 4, 1714. This ceremony
most likely took place in the chapter hall of the cathedral.
The archbishop‘s half-length state portrait would have been
displayed shortly afterward in the same hall.
88
indicated by the fact that he lived across the street from
the archbishop‘s palace, and that he was buried in the
Capilla de la Antigua in the Cathedral after his death in
1728.107
While the half-length in the chapter series may have
been the painter‘s first commission from Lanciego, the canvas
now in Denver most fully demonstrates the artist‘s
understanding of court portraiture. A recent cleaning of the
double-portrait has revealed the second figure in the
composition that had become obscured at some point during the
picture‘s history. Though this shadowy figure clearly
occupies a supporting role in the scene, the descriptive
nature of his facial characteristics and the intensity of his
gaze (not to mention the lighting) suggests that his likeness
is from life. Furthermore, the figure is hardly anonymous;
clearly, the likeness would have been a familiar face to the
intended audience of the picture. Thus, though his role is
secondary, his inclusion is intentional and significant: his
107
For a study of Rodríguez Juárez and his brother, Nicolás,
see Rogelio Ruíz Gomar, ―La tradición pictórica novohispana
en el taller de los Juárez,‖ in M.C. García Saíz and J.
Gutiérrez Haces, eds., Tradición, estilo o escuela en la
pintura Iberoamérica. Siglos XVI-XVIII (Mexico, D.F.,: UNAM
and Fomento Cultural Banamex, 2004), 151-172. Ruíz Gomar‘s
article is the best monographic study to date of this
artistic family.
89
gesture is one not only of deference toward the archbishop,
but also one that implies the close relationship between the
two men. The archbishop‘s appropriately overt gesture of
benediction, together with his attendant‘s act of raising the
drapery implies that Lanciego has fulfilled his immediate
obligations (perhaps the act of sitting for the portrait
itself) and is now in the process of departure. The
inclusion of such an active mise-en-scène is one of the most
significant departures from the conforming trends in
seventeenth and eighteenth portraiture in New Spain.
The inclusion of this second sitter must have been part
of the original commission, which was most likely from the
archbishop directly (rather than the cabildo of the
Cathedral, as would have been the case with Rodríguez
Juárez‘s extant half-length portrait in the sala capitular).
The Denver picture (pl. 24) and the double-portrait in the
cathedral (pl. 27) fit into a small group of such pictures in
the history of colonial painting in Mexico. Juan de Palafox,
archbishop of Puebla and viceroy of New Spain, is also
depicted with an attendant in a portrait in the collection of
the Museo de Santa Monica in Puebla (pl. 28). If this type of
composition was never a widespread tradition in the Spanish
Americas, the same cannot be said of European precedents.
90
Examples Several of Van Dyck‘s portraits in the 1630s also
presented major sitters such as Charles I with secondary
attendants such as the famed Roi à la Ciasse (Louvre, Paris)
and Charles I on Horseback (Royal Collection, Buckingham
Palace).
In the case of the Denver canvas, the secondary figure
in Lanciego‘s portrait is likely one of his nephews, either
José or Miguel Angel Lanciego y Eguilaz, both of whom hailed
from the town of Corella (Navarra, Spain). Both young men
accompanied their uncle to New Spain in 1713 as members of
the archbishop-elect‘s official entourage. In all likelihood
the figure is that of Miguel Angel, who became an important
member of the Company of Jesus in Mexico City and delivered
one of the official eulogies at his uncle‘s funeral
proceedings in 1728.108
Another member of the entourage who traveled to New
Spain with the archbishop in 1713 was his confessor and
primary aide, Vidal Martínez, a fellow Benedictine. It is
likely Vidal that is represented in the Mexico Cathedral
double portrait, which features an older companion clearly
108
Oraciones funerales…, op. cit. Miguel Angel Lanciego is
listed on the title page of the exequies as one of the
orators, along with Juan Antonio Fábrega Rubio. Juan José de
Eguiara y Eguren also contributed to the proceedings.
91
depicted in Benedictine vestments (pl. 27). Vidal was from
the monastery in Nájera where Lanciego had served as abbot
prior to his nomination as archbishop of Mexico. Prelates
appointed to high office throughout the Catholic world often
traveled with such ―favorites,‖ and the practice can be seen
among cardinals and popes at the Vatican to this day.
Vidal‘s presence in the foreground Cathedral double-portrait
is analogous to the prominent role that Miguel Angel plays as
advisor to the archbishop. However, the Denver canvas is
clearly the more prestigious commission of the two: the
Cathedral picture is a more modest workshop piece that relies
on earlier likenesses of Lanciego while the Denver picture is
a full-length, life-size composition executed (and signed) by
the master himself. Thus, it stands to reason that the work
by Rodríguez Juárez was commissioned directly by Lanciego
initially for the archbishop‘s palace but ultimately destined
for export to Lanciego‘s well-positioned family in Spain.
While such a grand composition by New Spain‘s best-known
portraitist would have provided a source of familial pride,
it also gave archbishop Lanciego a chance to demonstrate the
quality of the arts in New Spain to his peninsular relatives.
Archbishop Lanciego was known for his progressive
political policies, including the practice of nominating
92
greater numbers of American-born members of the secular
clergy.109 He also lobbied directly for greater resources for
his archdiocese as evidenced by his letters to Philip V in
Madrid. Among the charitable and educational institutions
that he founded were the Colegio de San Miguel de Belén for
poverty-stricken girls and another school called the Regina
Coeli. He also founded the Casa de Misericordia to house
women who had been widowed or otherwise geographically
separated from their husbands. His reforms often focused on
monasteries and convents and their dealings with the rural,
indigenous population of Mexico. In his sermons and
publications, he denounced the continuation of pre-Conquest
indigenous practices like harvest festivals (which the orders
often ignored), while at the same time urging parish priests
and friars to treat their native charges with love as
children, ―and not as beasts.‖110
109
For an in-depth study of ecclesiastical career options in
New Spain, see Rodolfo Aguirre Salvador, ―El ascenso de los
clérigos de Nueva España durante el gobierno del arzobispo
José Lanciego y Eguilaz,‖ Estudios del Historia Novohispana
22: 2000, 77-110. It was thanks to Lanciego, according to
Aguirre, that more than half of the sitting members of
cathedral chapters in Mexico were American-born by mid-
century. This situation was reversed subsequently by
Archbishop Lorenzana and Charles III‘s visitor-general, José
de Gálvez (1720-1787).
110
Lanciego y Eguilaz, ―Carta Pastoral,‖ 8 June 1726.
93
Lanciego‘s monastic reforms probably won him few
friends among the regular clergy and likely caused some
friction between his office and that of the viceroy, the Duke
of Linares (see pl. 23, and pl. 30, attributed to Francisco
Martínez, Museo Nacional de Historia, Mexico).111 However,
during the famine of 1713, he welcomed the viceroy‘s
collaboration in a campaign to feed the poor.112 His advocacy
of criollo (American-born Spanish) secular clergy was a main
concern from the moment he arrived in New Spain. He reveals
in a letter to the king his feeling that criollo priests were
better equipped and more trusted when it came to dealing with
the poor and indigenous populations.113 His promotion of
criollo clergy would have appeared counterproductive to the
viceroy, whose mandate was to maintain the colonial order of
the viceroyalty. Despite the strained relationship with
Linares, however, Lanciego and the viceroy joined forces in a
campaign to distribute food to combat the famine of 1714.114
Lanciego‘s political ambitions, and his commitment to
reform, would not have made him a popular leader among the
111
The plausible attribution of this canvas is found in both
Meyer and Ciancas, 1994, cat. 10; and Rodríguez Moya 2003,
202.
112
For more on this matter, see my discussion on Linares
above.
113
Aguirre Salvador, 78.
114
Oraciones Funerales…, op.cit.
94
viceroys or members of their retinue. It appears, however,
that Lanciego‘s shrewdness extended beyond political
influence to the power of the visual arts. The decision to
commission Juan Rodríguez Juárez may have been calculated to
position the prelate in direct contest with the viceroy, who
had employed the same painter in more than one of his
official state portraits. In the inscriptions of the Denver
double-portrait and the official chapter half-length,
Lanciego‘s appointments from both Charles II and Philip V are
clearly emphasized.115 In these pictures, which present the
official image of the archbishop and occupied Lanciego
recognized in his artist a fellow traveler that understood
the tricky business of promoting reform and innovation within
the strictures of colonial society.
Rodríguez Juárez and the Duke of Linares
Juan Rodríguez Juárez was an instrumental figure in the
changing styles of portraiture (and painting in general)
during the early eighteenth century.116 His portrait of
115
See note 54, above. In addition, his titles of inquisitor
and predicador under the monarchs are also listed in the
title pages of his published exequies.
95
Fernando de Alencastre Noroña y Silva, duke of Linares,
viceroy of New Spain (pl. 23, circa 1710, Museo Nacional de
Arte, Mexico) represents an early indicator of the changing
tastes at the viceregal court in Mexico City. Painted at the
time of the bitter conclusion of the War of Spanish
Succession, the portrait reflects the contemporary French
fashions that came to characterize the Bourbon court in
Madrid. One need only to compare the likeness of Linares to
that of his predecessor, Francisco Fernández de la Cueva, the
duke of Albuquerque (see his anonymous portrait of about
1703, Mexico, Museo Nacional de Historia) or Cristóbal de
Villalpando‘s portrait of Captain José Retes y Lagarcha
(pl.17, circa 1690, collection of Banco Nacional de México,
Mexico), to see the distance between the New Spain of the
Hapsburg Charles II and that of Philip V.117
Villalpando‘s composition, for example, is based on the
same models employed by López de Herrera and Diego de
Borgraf: the sitter is presented full-length in a defined
117
While Albuquerque had been appointed by Philip V, his
family‘s status as grandees of Spain stretched back to the
fifteenth. In addition, his grandfather, VIII duke of
Albuquerque, had served as Philip IV‘s viceroy in New Spain,
while his uncle had been viceroy of Perú. Portraits of
Linares‘ three predecessors as viceroy, including de la Cueva
(1702-1711), Archbishop Juan de Ortega Montañes (interim
1701-1702), and José Sarmiento y Valladares (1696-1701) show
them in distinctly Hapsburg-era fashions and compositions.
96
architectural space dressed in the full regalia of his
office. The face, while not overly idealized, is painted
with a restrained brush in a descriptive – rather than
painterly – mode. The master limits his bravura technique to
passages such as the fringed drapery and the elaborate
furniture, which are handled with an exuberant and suggestive
brush, while at the same time the shadowing behind the figure
and the modeling of his face bring a convincing yet painterly
naturalism to the composition. Villalpando‘s additions to
the canon of portraiture are characteristic of the
development of the genre throughout the viceregal period in
New Spain: subtle enhancements supplement a formula that
remained, in essence, unchanged.
While there remain only two extant autograph portraits
by this most innovative master of late seventeenth-century
New Spain, they fit securely in the traditional formula. At
first glance, it is curious that an artist with a style as
highly personal and painterly as Villalpando could have
composed both portraits; that of Retes y Lagarcha retains the
main features of the established protocol but infuses
passages of painterly brilliance that seem absent in that of
his portrait of Francisco de Aguiar y Seixas Ulloa (pl.
97
29).118 That said, Villalpando brought about subtle changes
within the protocol that both maintained the genre‘s
continuity while updating the basic formula. As the leading
painter of his day, Villalpando likely executed more than two
portraits during the course of his career.119 Problems arise,
however, in attributing unsigned works to Villalpando
precisely because of his restrained technique vis-à-vis
portraiture. Nevertheless, should more come to light, a
clearer picture of this important part of his oeuvre, and his
contribution to the genre, would surely emerge.
Returning to the duke of Linares in Rodríguez Juárez‘s
portrait, the artist presents his subject dressed in a gold-
embroidered blue velvet waistcoat, lace cuffs and collar, and
crimson-trimmed stockings. The king‘s surrogate occupies a
grand interior complete with a shimmering tapestry covered
with his coat-of-arms, which is slightly parted to reveal a
pair of glass-paned windows. An English desk clock, a popular
luxury item despite (or perhaps because of) the political
118
Juana Gutiérrez Haces, et al., Cristóbal de Villalpando
ca. 1649-1714. Catálogo razonado, (Fomento Cultural Banamex:
Mexico, 1997), no. 74.
119
The other portrait here is that of Francisco Aguilar y
Seixas, archbishop of Mexico (Mexico, D.F., La Profesa – San
Felipo Neri), which is in questionable condition due to old
restorations. However, this picture also fits a similar
description as that of Retes y Lagarcha.
98
enmity between the two nations, sits on an ornate marble side
table while a lengthy inscription is displayed on what
appears to be an architectural adornment.120 Even without the
inscription, the viewer is made aware of the sitter‘s quasi-
royal status: Linares‘s baton of command sits prominently on
the table, his left wrist rests on the jeweled hilt of a
sword, and a medal of the Order of Santiago hangs just below
the cascade of fine silk of his cravat.
The duke, who also held the marquisates of
Valdefuentes, Porta Alegre and Govea, had previously served
the king as Lieutenant General of the Spanish armies in
120
The inscription on the canvas reads: ―Don Fernando de
Lencastre Noroña y Silva, Duque de Linares, Marqués de
Valdefuentes, Portra Alegre, y Gobez; Comendador maior de la
orden de Santiago en Portugal, Gentilhombre de la Camara de
su Magestad, Theniente general de sus exercitos, Gobernador
General de sus reales armas en el Reyno de Napoles, electo
Virrey del Reino Serdeña, Vicario General de la Toscana,
electo Virrey del Peru, Virrey y Capitan General de esta
Nueva España. Murio en 3 de junio y se enterro el dia 6 del
dicho en la peana de este altar año de 1717.‖ Translation:
―Don Fernando de Lencastre Noroña y Silva, Duque de Linares,
Marqués de Valdefuentes, Porta Alegre, and Gobez [Govea];
commander major of the Order of Santiago in Portugal,
Gentleman of His Majesty‘s Chamber, Lieutenant General of His
armies, Governor General of Royal Arms in the Kingdom of
Naples, elected Viceroy of the Kingdom of Sardinia, Vicar
General of Tuscany, elected Viceroy of Peru, Viceroy and
Captain-General of this New Spain. Died 3 June and was buried
day 6 of the same [June] under the base of this altar in the
year 1717.‖
99
Naples, and as the viceroy of Sardinia and of Perú.121 An
important agent of reform under Philip V, Linares was
mandated with several tasks during his tenure in Mexico. His
primary goal was to fortify the Barlovento armada, the coast
guard fleet that protected Spanish islands in the Caribbean
from English pirates, Dutch ―pichilingues‖ and the British
Royal Navy.122 Along with this task, Linares was also charged
with increasing royal income, which he accomplished through
the promotion of maritime trade and the resulting increase in
tax revenue. Linares also set about to combat colonial crime
and corruption through the founding of a new imperial court
(the Tribunal de la Acordada), which was also meant to curb
the exploitation of the rural indigenous population.123
However, a devastating earthquake rocked New Spain‘s capital
in August of 1711, mere months after Linares took office. The
disaster shifted the viceroy‘s immediate priorities to
disaster relief and his long-term outlook toward
reconstruction. Ultimately, besides accomplishing his
121
Jaime Castañeda Iturbide, Gobernantes de la Nueva España,
Vol. II (1696-1821), (Mexico D.F.: Distrito Federal, 1986),
23.
122
For more on the subject of pirating during the viceregal
period, see Marita Martínez del Río de Redo, La fuerza y el
viento: la piratería en los mares de la Nueva España (Mexico,
D.F.: México Desconocido, 2002).
123
Castañeda Iturbide 1986, 24.
100
original crime-fighting mandates, Linares went on to finish
the rebuilding of the Viceroyal Palace, the Salta del Agua
aqueduct, while completing major architectural projects at
religious institutions like Santa Teresa la Nueva, San
Agustín and the convent of Santo Domingo.124 Furthermore, he
continued Spain‘s northward expansion with the foundation of
the town of San Felipe de Linares, not far from the present-
day Texas border.
We know from Rodríguez Juárez‘s portrait that Linares‘s
patronage was not limited to architectural commissions and
exploration; the inscription on the canvas states that this
magnificent portrait hung over the duke‘s tomb in the
Discalced Carmelite church of San Sebastián in Mexico City.125
The choice of painter here is significant: by 1710, Juan
Rodríguez Juárez had proven himself to be the most sought-
after portraitist in the viceroyalty. A commission from
Philip V in 1701 probably led directly to the artist‘s
employment at the viceregal court as painter to the duke of
Linares. For his first portrait after arriving in New Spain,
however, Linares chose the accomplished but lesser painter
124
Castañeda Iturbide 1986, 24-25.
125
Linares was buried there in 1717, after ill health
prevented him from returning to Spain. The church of San
Sebastián was founded by Franciscans and subsequently ceded
to the Augustinian order in 1607.
101
Francisco Martínez (pl. 30).126 The result is a faithful
half-length likeness of the duke in French-inspired attire
set within an indeterminate backdrop that is wholly in
keeping with previous official state portraiture.127 It was
not long before Linares turned to Rodríguez Juárez for a
full-length composition in which the subject may be seen to
embody the new Bourbon grandeur in New Spain.
Rodríguez Juárez‘s success as a portraitist did not
escape the attention of the archbishop, José de Lanciego. The
newly-appointed prelate and the viceroy were brought together
by calamitous circumstances: faced with a snow-bound famine
in 1713, Lanciego and Linares decided to collaborate on a
humanitarian campaign to feed the hunger-stricken populace.
This unusual instance of cooperation between the two highest
offices in the viceroyalty was recorded some years later in
the Gaceta de México.128 The working relationship between the
two statesmen likely led to Rodríguez Juárez‘s subsequent
employment as portraitist of the archbishop.
126
Martínez would also go on to produce a later copy after
Rodríguez‘s full-length portrait of the duke of Linares
(1723, Museo Nacional del Virreinato, Tepotzotlán).
127
See Manuel Cortina Portill, Veintitrés Virreyes y un siglo
(Mexico, D.F.: Grupo CONSA, 1995), no. IV, 25-27.
128
Gaceta de México 107 (October 1736), reproduced in Ignacio
Rubio Mañé, El Virreinato, vol. I, (Mexico, D.F.: 1983), 263.
102
Conclusions
Portraiture in New Spain continued in the later
seventeenth century in much the same vein as it had for the
earlier part of the viceregal era. For the most part, the
genre was still limited to figures in power like the
viceroys, bishops and other corporate bodies (university
rectors, etc). There were important exceptions, which will be
discussed in the next chapter, but the number of portraits of
other personages remained relatively small. Instead, the
tradition of the ―office‖ portrait, or the state image, was
promulgated and strengthened. Within the confines of this
established, ascendant tradition, advances to the genre were
often subtle, like changes in taste, fashion and display.
Bolder colors emerged, along with grander displays of wealth
and status. The composition of most corporate portraits
remained constant in adherence to the series‘ overall
character. The political landscape played a role: portraits
that legitimized their sitters‘ power were in demand.
Portrait commissions proliferated, but they were initiated
mainly by those seeking to consolidate their control in an
uncertain atmosphere.
103
By 1700, the artists Juan and Nicolás Rodríguez Juárez
had become the leading portraitists in Mexico, both working
for viceroys, prelates, and wealthy nobility. Nicolás, though
less prolific than his brother, reached a high point in his
career with his portrait of Don Joaquín Marqués de Santa Cruz
at the age of 4 (1695, Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico), in
which the boy is sensitively portrayed as both a child and an
heir in the Hapsburg pictorial mold. Though subtle and
seemingly minor to modern eyes, the contributions of these
brothers to the genre were nonetheless transformative within
the confines of a pictorial tradition that resisted
variation. Their modifications, which necessarily reflected
the wishes of their patrons, provided some of the artistic
impetus for the efflorescence of the portrait in the early
years of the eighteenth century.
104
CHAPTER III
Artistic Tranformations and Society in New Spain:
The Rise of the Portrait 1715-1780
Introduction
While on his deathbed in Madrid in October 1700,
Charles II wrote his will, stating that ―the succession of
all my kingdoms and dominions‖ were to fall to Philip of
Anjou.129 With little enthusiasm, the French duke took the
throne as Philip V, Spain‘s first Bourbon monarch. The
controversial succession, engineered by Philip‘s grandfather,
Louis XIV, was met nearly immediately with declarations of
war from every corner of Europe. Not only did the
stipulations of Charles II‘s will of 1700 threaten to upset
the delicate balance of power with England and the United
Provinces of the Netherlands, but the testament also ignored
a previous treaty that gave the throne to the Habsburg duke
of Bavaria (in this case, the putative heir, archduke
129
Henry Kamen, Philip V: The King who Reigned Twice (New
Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001), 3.
105
Charles). Initiated by Great Britain and its allies, the
exhausting War of Spanish Succession lasted until 1714, and
ultimately Philip V retained the monarchy for the house of
Bourbon. Practically forced into his role as king of Spain
by his grandfather, Philip V nevertheless approached his
duties with dedication. Even during the war, he set about
creating a wide-ranging policy of bureaucratic reform that
would quickly change the face of the Spanish court and those
of its representatives throughout the American realms.
At the same time, a boom in industry brought about New
Spain‘s emergence from a half-century of economic stagnation.
The rebound resulted primarily from increased private
investment in silver extraction while significant population
growth provided a larger workforce.130 Secondary factors like
greater access to mercury (for refining silver) and
technological advances in underground mining also played a
role in the production increases. Family owned silver mining
concerns in New Spain no longer relied as heavily on slave
labor, as their counterparts in the Viceroyalty of Peru
continued to do, so large increases in employment led to
130
Elliott 2006, 255. See also D. A. Brading, Miners and
Merchants in Bourbon Mexico, 1763-1810. Cambridge Latin
American studies, 10. (Cambridge [Eng.]: University Press,
1971), chapter 2.
106
economic stimulation in other areas like farming and
textiles.131 The distribution of this growing productivity and
pursuant wealth, however, was still limited to the small
percentage of the population that owned the mining
concerns.132
Enterprise in Mexico, which passed from one generation
to the next and thus stayed within family control, began to
thrive. Apart from silver, the growing demand for and
production of cacao (chocolate) and cochineal, which produced
the ―perfect red‖ used to make the most sought-after dye in
Europe, helped to create an emerging upper class.133 Many
industries were based at haciendas outside regional centers
far from the capital. However, the majority of
entrepreneurial families resided in Mexico City and did most
of their business transactions there. By the end of the
eighteenth century, there were over one hundred families in
131
Ibid., 2006, 256.
132
Regional centers of Guanajuato north of Mexico City
flourished with the new-found wealth, but most shareholders
in the silver industry were still based in Mexico City.
Higher output of silver also meant a lower tax percentage
imposed by Madrid.
133
John E. Kicza, Colonial Entrepreneurs: Families and
Business in Bourbon Mexico City (Albuquerque: University of
New Mexico Press, 1983), 16. See also Amy Butler Greenfield,
A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color
of Desire (New York: HarperCollins, 2005).
107
the capital that had amassed estates over one million
pesos.134
There were exceptions, of course. Most notably, there
were several (four, perhaps five) families in Guanajuato that
might have been considered among the wealthiest in the
viceroyalty. Veracruz, though it generated a great deal of
wealth as the major hub of transatlantic trade, was viewed as
such an inhospitable place to live that nearly all its
wealthy families resided elsewhere. Guadalajara had but two
―millionaire‖ families by the end of the century.135 Puebla,
whose consistent prosperity throughout the viceregal period
was based largely on the number of religious institutions
based there, enjoyed only a modest wealth from its textiles
and agriculture when compared with the fortunes in Mexico
City. Although the greatest wealth generated during the
eighteenth century was largely confined to a small percentage
of families, this resulted in the growth of small business
throughout the capital and the provincial centers of the
134
Kicza 1983, 16.
135
Kicza 1983, 15-17. Kicza identifies what he calls ―the
Greats‖ as those families who achieved the uppermost echelon
of economic wealth in New Spain with fortunes over one
million pesos. He charts one hundred or so such families
resident in Mexico City, and fewer that a dozen resided in
other regional towns. For Guanajuato, see Brading 1971,
chapters 8 and 9.
108
viceroyalty.136 In short, social mobility increased markedly
in eighteenth-century New Spain, most notably in the capital.
The century was marked not only by economic growth and
population increases, but also by fundamental demographic
shifts in colonial society. In New Spain, between 1650 and
1750, the total population nearly doubled (in stark contrast
to opposite trends in peninsular Spain).137 While all areas of
the population saw increases during the eighteenth century,
the most noticeable advances were those among the mestizo
population, whose imposed racial classifications became the
basis for the series of casta paintings, which reached a peak
of popularity in the second half of the eighteenth century.138
At the same time, the population of the Creole elite
(American-born Spaniards) grew steadily, and immigration from
Spain continued, though at hardly more than a statistical
trickle. Meanwhile, the indigenous population remained stable
but still susceptible to European pestilence and infant
mortality. Among these different demographic groups, the
136
For example, importers and exporters in the principal port
cities of Guadalajara amassed considerable wealth, while
wholesale entrepreneurs in Mexico City profited greatly from
the concentration of rich consumers in the capital.
137
Elliott 2006, 261.
138
Ilona Katzew, Casta Painting: Images of Race in
Eighteenth-Century Mexico (New Haven and London: Yale
Unversity Press, 2004), 111 ff.
109
Creoles appear to have benefited dramatically from the mining
boom and other related businesses. The wealthiest Creole
families such as the Sánchez de Tagle, Campa Cos and Jaral de
Berrio, who had been established in New Spain for
generations, began to decorate the interiors of their urban
mansions with painted portraits.139 The practice of
commissioning portraiture, which imitated in equal parts that
of the noble elite in Spain and the viceregal court in
Mexico, emerged in force by the third decade of the
eighteenth century.
Though the Bourbon Reforms enacted by Philip V and his
heirs were intended to limit the increasing political power
of clans like the Sánchez de Tagle or Cevallos González, many
Creole families were able to buy into important positions in
the viceregal administration, the Church and the judiciary.140
Pro-creole authorities, such as archbishop José de Lanciego y
Equilaz, whose fifteen-year tenure in Mexico ended with his
death in 1728, further encouraged social advancement among
139
For a discussion of such families, and their rising
financial and political stock, see Kicza 1983, 33-38.
140
John Lynch, Bourbon Spain: 1700-1808 (Oxford: Blackwell,
1989), 228-9. Also see Elliot 2006, 302. By mid-century, the
Audiencia in the capital of New Spain was dominated by a
creole majority, as was the case in many other centers
throughout the Spain‘s American territories.
110
creoles by promoting them in the Church hierarchy. Though
these appointments (especially those within the Church or
universities) were not always lucrative, they consolidated a
family‘s social standing and brought sought-after prestige.
Likewise, family members in the legal profession might
attain judgeships or government posts that would provide
economic and political advantages to the family and its
businesses. In addition, marriage was used with strategic
efficacy to achieve social advancement; Creole daughters and
their considerable dowries were often offered to peninsulars
while creole ―dynasties‖ united several times over to create
ever greater land holdings and wealth.141 Great wealth,
government appointments, service to the crown and shrewd
marital contracts were the surest paths for a creole family‘s
grand prize: a knighthood in one of the royal orders (among
which those of Santiago and Calatrava were the most
prestigious). Such knighthoods were, in turn, steps towards
titles of nobility like that awarded to Miguel de Berrio y
Zaldívar, who became the first Marques de Jaral de Berrio in
141
Kicza 1983, 38-40. Two of the highest profile marriages
of the eighteenth century were that of the daughter of the
creole Marques de Jaral de Berrio to the peninsular
intendente of Oaxaca, and the union of María Rafaela
Gutiérrez de Terán and the Conde de Casa Flores, son of the
viceroy.
111
1776.142 The process of nomination to knighthood required an
investigation known as the limpieza de sangre, or purity of
blood.143 Furthermore, all Spanish emigrants to the Americas
were required to demonstrate that their ―purity of blood;‖
Jews and Muslims (among others) were disqualified from
entering the New World.144 Thus, successful creole candidates
had proven that their bloodlines were free of miscegenation.
In essence, portraits were a visual parallel to patents of
nobility: they honored their subjects by emphasizing their
wealth, piety and virtue, while they listed their bloodlines
and offices in textual inscriptions. The following is an
examination of how the elite in New Spain, both the noble and
the common, chose to portray themselves, and what social and
political aims informed such commissions.
New Categories of Painting in Mexico
The second decade of the eighteenth century, in the
early years of the ascendant Bourbon dynasty in Spain, is
marked by several extraordinary developments in the visual
arts in New Spain. First, there is the remarkable emergence
142
Ibid., 38.
143
Elliott 1963, 220-224.
144
Elliott 2006, 51.
112
of the casta painting genre, which imposed a visual ―system‖
of classification on the changing racial make-up of New
Spain. Its legal origins at least partially borne of the
dogma of limpieza de sangre of medieval Spain, the sistema de
castas was ―created by Spanish law and the colonial elite in
response to the growth of miscegenated population.‖145 The
earliest known series of casta paintings, attributed to
Manuel Arellano (active 1691—ca. 1722), was completed in
1711.146 Just a few years later, Juan Rodríguez Juárez and his
studio completed several more sets of castas, at least two of
which were partially modeled after the paintings by Arellano
and at least one of which was commissioned by the viceroy,
Fernando de Alencastre Noroña y Silva, duke of Linares (1641—
145
John K. Chance and William B. Taylor, ―Estate and Class in
Colonial Oaxaca: Oaxaca in 1792,‖ Comparative Studies in
Society History (1977), 460. See Katzew‘s cogent synthesis of
the literature on the sistema, including how it was used by
the Creoles to differentiate themselves from the racially
inferior categories of this model of classification, which
were occupied by Indians and Africans; Katzew 2006, 43.
146
Katzew 2004, 10-15. Three extant canvases from this series
are known: two are in the Museo de América, Madrid; the other
is known as Rendition of a Mulatto (Denver Art Museum,
Frederick and Jan Mayer collection (pl. 31). For this canvas,
see also Denver 2004, cat. 30 by Katzew. A fourth is known
only through photographs. See also María Concepción García
Saíz, Las castas mexicanas: Un género pictórico Americano
(Milan: Olivetti, 1989). See also the Arellano biography by
Juana Gutiérrez Haces in Philadelphia 2006, 528.
113
1717, viceroy 1711—1716).147 In the 1720s, the tradition
flourished with examples by José de Ibarra (1685—1756), and
by the second half of the eighteenth century, the genre had
proliferated exponentially, with works by Miguel Cabrera
(1695—1768), Juan Patricio Morlete y Ruiz (1713—ca. 1772),
and José de Alcíbar (1751—1803). Not surprisingly, many of
the artists that excelled at painting castas were also
consummate portraitists.
The second genre that emerged around this time is that
of the so-called monjas coronadas, or crowned nuns, in which
young women were portrayed at the time of their profession to
religious orders.148 These works, which appear to have
developed from the Spanish tradition of death portraits of
nuns, depict the sitters wearing elaborate floral headdresses
in the shape of imperial crowns, like Mother Ana Maria of the
147
Katzew 2004, 12-17, and 69ff. The castas by Rodríguez
Juárez are located in various institutions and private
collections, among them Breamore House (Hampshire, England),
the Hispanic Society of America (New York), and the Museo de
América (Madrid).
148
See James M. Córdova, ―Mexico‘s Crowned Virgins: Visual
Strategies and Colonial Discourse in New Spain‘s Portraits of
‗Crowned Nuns‘,‖ Tulane University, 2006; see also Alma
Montero Alarcón, Monjas coronadas: profesión y muerte en
Hispanoamérica virreinal (Mexico, D.F.: INAH and Museo
Nacional del Virreinato, 2008), which includes a database of
over 100 portraits of crowned nuns. A full bibliography
cannot be included here, but can be found in these two
studies.
114
Precious Blood of Christ (pl. 32, Denver Art Museum,
Frederick and Jan Mayer collection).149 The portrayals, many
of which are full-length compositions, depict a specific
liturgical event in which the female postulant took her vows,
thereby assuming a role as bride of Christ.150 In general, the
monjas coronadas emerged as a tradition slightly later (there
are always exceptions) than the castas, and enjoyed continual
popularity into the nineteenth century. Most were
commissioned by wealthy families to commemorate a daughter‘s
profession, which was a source of pride in Creole society.
Like the castas, some of the finest examples are by prominent
artists like Miguel Cabrera and José de Alcíbar; however, the
majority of the authors remain unidentified or anonymous.
Cabrera pioneered a simplified subgenre, exemplified by the
portraits (both dated 1759) of the Capuchin Sor Agustina
Teresa de Arozqueta (pl. 33, Museo Nacional del Virreinato,
Tepotzotlán, Mexico) and the Conceptionist Sor Anna María de
San Francisco y Neve (Santa Rosa de Viterbo, Queretaro).151
149
See Pierce in Denver 2004, 267.
150
Ibid. See also Kirsten Hammer, ―Monjas Coronadas: The
Crowned Nuns of Viceregal Mexico,‖ in Retratos: 2,000 Years
of Latin American Portraits (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press; San Antonio Museum of Art, 2004), 86-101.
151
See Rogelio Ruiz Gomar in Mexico: Splendors of Thirty
Centuries, cat. 153; and Michael A. Brown, ―Imagen de un
imperio,‖ in Pintura de los Reinos (2009), 1502-1503. The
115
As Eva Nyerges has pointed out, the full-length nun‘s
portrait, whether crowned or not, likely stems from the same
origins as Velázquez‘s Portrait of Doña María Jerónima de la
Fuente.152 The monjas coronadas are clearly set apart from
other forms of portraiture because of their liturgical
iconography, allegorical aspects, and above all, their
temporal specificity.153 They commemorate the event of a nun‘s
profession of vows, the precise date of which is often
recorded in an inscription on the canvas.
The third transformative development of the early
eighteenth century in New Spain was the rapid emergence of
what I will call the society portrait, more commonly known as
the retrato civil. It is perhaps not surprising that as
wealth and population grew in Mexico, so did the demand for
painted portraiture, especially among elite Criollo men and
Spanish nobility. Perhaps more remarkable was the rapid rise
of female portrait commissions, as well as those of children,
attribution of this spectacular picture is still in question

as claims have been made for both Miguel Cabrera and José de
Paez. However, the similarities to Sor Agustina Teresa de
Arozqueta are unmistakable, as are the shared solemnity of
character and individualized beauty of the sitters. To my
mind, at least in the absence of convincing evidence to the
contrary, the attribution to Cabrera is the most reasonable.
152
Denver 2004, 304, n. 4.
153
Josefina Muriel, Retratos de monjas (Mexico, D.F.: Ed.
Jus, 1952), 37.
116
around 1710. As was the case elsewhere in the Spanish empire
and in Europe in general, the lesser nobility and wealthy
merchant class imitated the highest echelons of society in
their patronage of the arts.154 In New Spain, the tradition of
portraiture established by the viceroys and bishops provided
the model for such commissions, but other factors played
important roles in the development of society and family
portraiture in New Spain. The following discussion examines
the domestic portrait in Mexico, its emergence as a pictorial
genre distinct from other kinds of portraiture, and the
different forms that this genre took in New Spain.
Female Portraits in New Spain
The earliest known female portrait in New Spain was
painted by Baltasar de Echave Orio about 1615-1620 (pl. 34,
Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico).155 It depicts a young
noblewoman in the attitude of prayer, eyes raised heavenward,
154
The historiography of this phenomenon in other countries
in Europe is well established, especially in cases such as
Anthony van Dyck in England. While this is not the place to
list the bibliography of Van Dyck‘s English period, I should
acknowledge the contributions of Olivar Millar and Malcolm
Rogers. See also Laura Lunger Knoppers, ―The Politics of
Portraiture: Oliver Cromwell and the Plain Style,‖
Renaissance Quarterly (1998): 1283-1319.
155
Ruiz Gomar, ―Unique Expressions,‖ 51.
117
dressed in finery including a diaphanous veil trimmed with
lace and pearls, a ruff collar, gold buttons and rings with
ruby and emerald gemstones. The rendering of the face reveals
a hand that is in complete control of the medium: each
eyelash is achieved with a delicate yet confident stroke, the
translucence of the veil is suggested using a dry-brush
technique, and the eyes are given life with a single touch of
white pigment highlighting the iris. This crisp, precise
style is reminiscent of trends in early seventeenth-century
Seville and the court style of Philip III. One can only
speculate as to the identity of the sitter, but presumably
she was the vicereine or a member of the viceroy‘s family.
Echave‘s style is in stark contrast with the later
portrait by an unidentified artist of Manuela Molina
Mosquiera y de la Barrera (pl. 35, private Collection,
Mexico), which was painted about 1660. This image shows a
fluid touch and a style more reminiscent of painters working
in Madrid in the second half of the seventeenth century. This
is one of very few portraits of children before the
eighteenth century, but it suggests evidence that artists in
New Spain were fully conversant with trends in Spain. Manuela
Mosquiera, who took the name Sor Teresa de Jesús when she
entered the Carmelite convent of St. Teresa as a twelve-year
118
old girl in 1664,156 is shown dressed not as an adult, but as
a courtly child in the vein of Velázquez or Juan Carreño de
Miranda. In fact, the composition and the pose of the young
sitter mirror Velázquez‘s nearly contemporary portrait of the
Prince Felipe Próspero (pl. 36, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum, Gemäldegalerie). The composition also compares to
Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo‘s portrait of Prince Baltasar
Carlos of 1645-46 (pl. 37, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado),
in which the sitter also rests a hand on an upholstered
master‘s chair (sometimes called a frailero).157 A comparison
of Manuela Molina Mosquiera to José Antolínez‘s Portrait of a
Young Girl (pl. 38, Museo del Prado, Madrid) of circa 1660
reveals a significant difference between the Spanish and
Mexican works.158 While the two girls both wear large red
ribbons in their hair and elaborate, fashionable dresses with
slashed sleeves, Manuela shows off a profusion of pearls and
gold rings. As Ana Paulina Gámez has pointed out, the pearls
156
Entry by Marita Martínez del Río de Redo in Denver 2004,
182.
157
For this work, see Javier Portús‘s entry in El retrato
español en el Prado del Greco a Goya, ed. Leticia Ruiz Gómez
(Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2006), 98-99.
158
Ruiz Gómez 2006, 120.
119
originated in the Caribbean, and the wearing of such jewelry
was more common among Americans than Peninsular ladies.159
Fancy dress and fine jewelry also figure prominently in
Juan Rodríguez Juárez‘s Saint Rose of Lima with a Female
Donor (pl. 39, circa 1710, Denver Art Museum, Frederick and
Jan Mayer collection), which is an excellent example of a
type of portraiture whose popularity began to grow shortly
after the Bourbon succession: the female donor portrait.160
Rodríguez Juárez‘s central image of Saint Rose of Lima is
based closely on Murillo‘s composition of the same subject of
1675 (Madrid, Museo Lázaro Galdiano) and reproduces both the
composition and the palette so closely that the painter
likely knew the work through a faithful painted copy, rather
than a print.161
Having completed portraits of both the viceroy and the
archbishop, but also one of the first sets of castas in 1715
(also for the duke of Linares), Juan Rodríguez Juárez was
ideally positioned to exploit the growing fashion among
159
Gámez in Denver 2004, 183.
160
See Denver 2004, cat. 16.
161
There is also the possibility that Rodríguez Juárez
traveled to Spain, in which case he would have had the
opportunity to copy the original directly. So far, however,
there is no evidence that the artist undertook such a
journey.
120
Mexico‘s elite for sumptuous painted portraits.162 Rodríguez
Juárez and his brother, Nicolás (1667-1734), had attained
master status by about 1695 and were the descendants of a
long-established artistic dynasty that stretched back to the
early seventeenth century. Apart from the official ―state‖
images of government, church or academic leaders, portraiture
was a rarity in the first century and a half of Spanish rule.
With several notable exceptions, there were no female
portraits. However, by 1720 a sea change had taken place, and
portrait commissions exploded across the artistic spectrum.
The placement of the donor before Saint Rose of Lima in
the lower right foreground follows a long-established
tradition for such compositions. Among the best early
examples of this arrangement is seen in Basilio de Salazar‘s
Mass of Saint Gregory (pl. 40, Guanajuato, Church of San
Felipe Neri), signed and dated 1645, in which two young
female donors are depicted with hands clasped in prayer,
looking out at the viewer from the lower left foreground.163
These two girls are also dressed in finery, sporting a
162
Katzew 2004, 69, who cites Efraín Castro Morales, ―Los
cuadros de castas de la Nueva España,‖ Jahrbuch für
Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft
Lateinamerikas, no. 20 (1983), 679-80.
163
See Ruiz Gomar in Denver 2004, 146.
121
proliferation of pearls, jeweled headdresses, and rings and
bracelets with more pearls and gemstones.
By the time Rodríguez Juárez painted his female donor
into the composition with Saint Rose of Lima, the tradition
of depicting young women in Spain‘s American territories in
this way had taken hold. Other slightly later examples
include the anonymous portraits of Isabel Rosa Caterina de
Ceballos Villegas (pl. 41, circa 1730, private collection,
Mexico City), and María Juliana Rita Nuñez de Villavicencio y
Peredo (pl. 42, circa 1735, private collection, Mexico City)
in which the sitters wear embroidered dresses of Asian silk,
Flemish or French lace, and an abundance of Caribbean
pearls.164
The portrait of a Young Woman at a Harpsichord (circa
1720, Denver Art Museum, Collection of Frederick and Jan
Mayer, pl. 43) represents another aspect of the emerging
tradition of female portraiture in New Spain. Like the donor
portraits, this young lady (who appears around the age of
fourteen) is depicted wearing an elaborate hoop skirt of
embroidered Asian silk, trimmed with lace collar and sleeves,
with gold bracelets featuring dozens of large pearls on each
164
Museo Poblano de Arte Virreinal, Retrato novohispano 1999,
cats. 8 and 13.
122
wrist. She also has pearls in her wig, set into floral
appliqués, and small pearls set into silver rings on several
of her fingers. Around her neck is a gold choker with a
cruciform pendant set with diamonds or emeralds (both of
which were mined in the Americas).165
Perhaps the most striking aspect of this portrait is
that the young subject stands before a harpsichord, pointing
with her left hand at a piece of sheet music on the register
above the instrument‘s keyboard. The perspective of the
picture is tilted slightly forward, which was not uncommon in
viceregal portraiture throughout the Americas and was
employed to improve the visual clarity of larger
compositions. The young lady represents the height of Mexican
fashion, a couture crossroads of the finest of materials from
Asia, Europe and the Americas. Her accessories, including the
closed fan, the chiquiador on her temple, the cross around
her neck, her wig (or powdered hairstyle) and her expression
all speak to her sophistication, properness, and gentility.
With the inclusion of the harpsichord, which alludes to the
165
For the mining of emeralds and pearls in the Spanish
Americas, see Michael A. Brown, ―Selected Objects from the
Stapleton Foundation Collection of Latin American Colonial
Art,‖ in The Arts of South America 1492-1850: Papers from the
2008 Mayer Center Symposium at the Denver Art Museum, ed.
Donna Pierce, (Denver: Denver Art Museum and University of
Oklahoma Press, 2010).
123
sitter‘s high degree of education, the intent of the portrait
is clear: this young lady represents the essence of
sophisticated Creole society.
Portraits of Youth and their Families
The Portrait of Fernando Frayle Navas at age thirteen
(pl. 44, 1763, Frederick and Jan Mayer collection, Denver) is
unusual for a number of reasons.166 While pictures of children
were not uncommon in eighteenth-century New Spain, most
depictions are of younger subject. This is an image of
striking simplicity at a time when the growing wealth of the
elite classes in New Spain was highlighted in portraiture
through the inclusion of finery such as jewelry, imported
clocks and embroidered silks. As we have seen, portraits of
young females included even more elaborate fashions and
166
The inscription is transcribed: ―Don Fernando Frayle
Navas, hijo del lugar de San Cristobal, jurisdicción de la
villa de Cuéllar obispado de Segovia; colegial filosofo en el
real y primitivo del señor San Nicolas Obispo en este ciudad
de Valladolid, obispado y provincia de Michoacán. De edad de
13 años, cumplidos en este [año] de 1763.‖ [Don Fernando
Frayle Navas, native son of the town of San Cristobal in the
jurisdiction of the town of Cuéllar in the diocese of
Segovia. Schoolboy in philosophy at the Royal and ancient
[college] of Señor San Nicolás Bishop in this city of
Valladolid [Morelia] in the diocese and province of
Michoacán. At the age of 13 years, celebrated in this year of
1763.]
124
accessories. Don Fernando is presented in the dark blue gown
that signifies his baccalaureate of theology. The rest of his
attire does little to draw attention away from his likeness:
his shoes are fine yet simple, as is his black cassock and
white collar. In his right hand, he holds a biretta (a four-
cornered clerical cap) while the left rests on his breast.
The sole sumptuary item is on the pinky finger of this hand;
it is a gold ring signifying his education and his imminent
entry into Church life. The scarcity of pictures such as this
is even more marked in the face of the huge proliferation of
contemporaneous portraits of adolescent females, who were
often depicted upon their entry into the cloistered life in
highly sumptuous fashion. These paintings, now known
collectively as monjas coronadas (crowned nuns), became
wildly popular among the elite classes in New Spain from
around 1720 on. Most of such works depict their teenage
sitters wearing a tiara of fresh-cut flowers and lavish dress
while holding crucifixes or various devotional sculptures.167
Don Fernando, however, is depicted at an age similar to
many of these monjas coronadas, and most closely resembles
those portraits of young nuns that have consciously eschewed
167
See Alma Montero Alarcón, Monjas coronadas (Mexico, D.F.:
Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1999), for more
examples of such pictures.
125
ostentation and display. Two of the best examples of such
portraiture are by Miguel Cabrera: the Capuchin Sor María
Josefa Agustina Dolores Teresa de Arozqueta (pl. 33, Museo
Nacional del Virreinato, Tepotzotlán) and Sor Ana María de
San Francisco y Neve (church of Santa Rosa Viterbo, sacristy,
Querétaro). Both pictures share numerous similarities in both
style and composition with that of the young Fernando Frayle
Navas and were painted in 1759, only four years earlier. In
all three, the subject is presented in stage-like space
stripped of nearly all superfluous detail and consisting
mainly of a tiled floor and a dark, unadorned back wall.
Although each likeness is accompanied by the ubiquitous
biographical inscription found throughout the portraiture of
New Spain, there is little else to distract the viewer‘s
attention from the sitter‘s countenance. All three pictures
also rely on a similar, dark red ground to create a
shimmering quality of the paint surface, especially in the
depiction of the background.
The inscription in the Don Fernando portrait, like that
of Sister Agustina Arozqueta, is contained in a whimsical
plaster rocaille frame, which is reminiscent of
contemporaneous mirror frames but is likely a product of the
artist‘s imagination. Similar asymmetrical frames, sometimes
126
found in portraiture in Seville at the time, appear
throughout Cabrera‘s work, notably in his portraits of Pope
Benedict XIV (1759, Church of Santa Prisca de Taxco,
Guerrero), Ferdinand VI (pl. 45, 1751, Museo de la Basíca de
Guadalupe, Mexico) and Don Miguel Alonso de Hortigoza (1761,
Museo Nacional de Historia, Mexico,).168 Likewise, other
idiosyncrasies in the Denver picture are reminiscent of
aspects of Cabrera‘s art. While Cabrera was an unquestioned
master of the depiction human facial characteristics, he was
erratic when it came to the modeling of hands. Even in his
best work, such as the casta painting of De español y de
india (1763, Private Collection, Mexico) the results can be
unconvincing.169 In some appropriate circumstances, such as
with Sister Agustina or his Portrait of Lieutenant Colonel
José Velásquez de Lorea (1751, Church of Santa Rosa Viterbo,
Querétaro) he avoided the problem by hiding his subjects‘
168
Similar frames with inscriptions appear in Spanish
pictures of the same period, especially in Seville, the port
city that was the gateway to the Spanish Americas. See for
example Andrés Rubira‘s Portrait of José Cervi (1734, Real
Academia de Medicina, Seville). Please see Enrique
Valdivieso, Pintura barroca Sevillana (Seville: Guadalquivir,
2003), 551. See also Fray Miguel de Herrera‘s portrait of
Pope Benedict XIV (Museo de la Basílica de Guadalupe,
Mexico).
169
See Katzew, Ilona, Casta Painting: Images of Race in
Eighteenth-Century Mexico (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 2004), 116.
127
hands entirely.170 In the case of Don Fernando, the hands are
simplified so as not to attract undue attention. Another
detail reminiscent of Cabrera‘s technique may be found in the
extended right index finger of the hand holding the biretta.
This is a convention seen in other works such as Cabrera‘s
Portrait of the Count of Santiago de Calimaya (1752, Brooklyn
Museum of Art, New York).
Perhaps the most striking characteristic of the canvas
is the sensitivity the artist achieves in his portrayal of
the young seminarian. Don Fernando‘s confident demeanor is
balanced by a modesty that produces a sympathetic and warm
portrayal rather than one of arrogance or hauteur. The
bright and supple treatment of the face, especially in the
pinkness of his cheeks and the slightly pursed lips, is a
hallmark of Cabrera‘s style, and recalls works such as the
portrait of Velásquez de Lorea (who appears in his late
twenties) or that of Doña Bárbara de Ovando y Rivadeneyra
with her Guardian Angel (Private collection, Mexico City).171
170
In other cases, the evidence of Cabrera‘s struggles with
the modeling of hands and fingers is apparent in visible
pentimenti. See for example his Portrait of the Archbishop
Juan de Zumárraga (Museo de la Basílica de Guadalupe, Mexico,
D.F.).
171
Tovar de Teresa, Guillermo, Miguel Cabrera: pintor de
cámara de la reina celestial (Mexico, D.F.: Grupo Financiero
InverMexico, 1995), 232 and cat. 300.
128
In the case of Don Fernando, the artist shows no attempt to
hide the subject‘s youth or present him as a miniature adult.
Rather, we are presented with a true-to-life boy who has just
completed an important first stage of his educational and
religious development. Most significantly, Cabrera was the
painter most known for portraits of such heightened
simplicity. For a family such as the Navas, who were already
familiar with the work of a prestigious portraitist such as
José de Páez, Miguel Cabrera would have been the best choice
for such a commission.
Born in 1750, young Fernando made the grueling journey
at age seven to New Spain with his uncle, Fernando Navas
Arnanz (whose portrait by José de Páez is also in the Mayer
collection in Denver) from their native town of Cuéllar in
Segovia (Spain). Unfortunately, very little is known of the
younger Fernando‘s later life. While most Church dignitaries
traveled with numerous relatives and friends in their trans-
Atlantic entourages, it is unclear whether any family members
other than Fernando accompanied his uncle to Morelia (called
Valladolid then) after his appointment to the Cathedral
chapter. It was common for boys in Spain and Mexico to
dedicate themselves to church service from an early age and
Don Fernando likely was destined for the ecclesiastical life
129
from birth. Should his parents have remained in Cuéllar
during his upbringing in Mexico, it is tempting to imagine
that this portrait – an image of family pride and progress –
was an export commission intended for them.
Don Fernando‘s uncle, don Fernando Navas Arnanz (pl.
46, Denver Art Museum, Frederick and Jan Mayer collection,
Denver), is commemorated in a canvas by José de Paez, in
which the artist presents his subject in a composition
favored by many prelates and members of the Church hierarchy:
the sitter is seen full-length in a study, surrounded by
objects that refer to his office and intellect. In his proper
left hand, he holds a book. This type of portrait follows the
tradition established in the early seventeenth century by
such artists as Alonso López de Herrera and Baltasar Echave
Orio. As with many such portraits, a glimpse of Navas
Arnanz‘s biography is provided in a lengthy biographical
inscription enclosed in an ornate cartouche that rests
against his desk.172 According to the inscription, don
172
The inscription reads: ―El Liciendo Don Fernando Navas
Arnanz, natural de la villa de Cuellar, en el obispado de
Segovia, cura economo de San Martín y Modian, propio del
lugar de Fuentes, y de la parroquía de Santa María de la
Cuesta, abad del cabildo ecclesiastico de Valdelobingo
después del cabildo de la Villa de Cuellar permanecido hasta
el año de 1757, en el que fue nombrado racionero de la Santa
Catedral de Valladolid en este obispado de Michoacán en la
130
Fernando was born in the town of Cuéllar, Spain, located
north of Madrid about midway between Segovia and Valladolid.
The inscription identifies the sitter as a university-
educated scholar (―Liciendo‖ refers to his baccalaureate of
law), whose assignments in Spain included the financial
oversight of several parishes and other administrative
positions in the region near his birthplace. In 1757, Navas
Arnanz was named racionero (prebendary) of the cathedral in
Valladolid in Mexico (now Morelia), located in the state of
Michoacán. Thus, Navas Arnanz became the chief financial
officer of the cathedral, and in this capacity oversaw
revenue, salaries, and clergy-members‘ benefices. It appears
from the wording of the picture‘s inscription that the
cathedral‘s governing council (the cabildo, or chapter) was
responsible for the portrait‘s commission. Because such
portraits often commemorated the assumption or tenure of
certain ecclesiastical positions, it is possible to date the
Nueva España.‖ Translation: ―The Licentiate Don Fernando

Navas Arnanz, native of the town of Cuéllar, in the bishopric
of Segovia; vicar and parish administrator of SS. Martín and
Modrían, also of the town of Fuentes and the parish of Santa
Maria de la Cuesta; abbot of the ecclesiastical council of
Valdelobingo, followed by the same position in the parish
council of the town of Cuellar where he remained until the
year 1757, in which he was named prebendary of the Cathedral
of Valladolid [Morelia] in this diocese of Michoacán in New
Spain.‖
131
picture with some security to within a decade of Navas
Arnanz‘s appointment as racionero in 1757.
This proposed date corresponds accurately with the span
of José de Páez‘s artistic career. The most prominent
portraitist of the second half of the eighteenth century,
Paez‘s style reached its maturity in the 1770s. The likeness
of Don Fernando Navas Arnanz, especially compared to Páez‘s
later portrait of the Archbishop-Viceroy Alonso Nuñez de Haro
(pl. 20, 1773, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut),
provides insight into a transitional phase in the artist‘s
development.173 As in the Hartford portrait, the sitter is
arranged in a life-sized, full-length setting that features
an array of books, rich drapery, a coat of arms and lavish
furniture. However, the exuberance with which the artist has
executed the cascades of drapery in the Denver picture stands
in contrast to the subdued and simplified depiction in the
Hartford canvas, which was painted about a decade later
during a time when ideals of neo-Classicism were coming to
the forefront in New Spain.
173
Although the sheer number of portraits of Nuñez de Haro
prohibit listing all of them here, notable examples are in
the Museo Nacional del Virreinato, Tepotzotlán and the Museo
de la Profesa, Mexico City. The Hartford canvas is discussed
more fully by Rogelo Ruiz Gomar in Denver 2004, 253-55.
132
Details of José de Páez‘s biography remain scarce,
although we know that he was born in Mexico City in 1720, son
of Bartolomé de Páez. His body of work reveals a prolific and
talented painter, especially in the area of portraiture.
While Manuel Toussaint derided his tendency (especially in
religious works) to include one fine figure while leaving the
rest utterly worthless, Paez was certainly capable of
passages of brilliance.174 Besides the Denver and Hartford
pictures, an unpublished oil-on-copper of the Jesuit Padre
Francisco de Gerónimo (sacristy, church of La Profesa, Mexico
City) attests to his facility with the brush and his mastery
of depicting facial characteristics.175 Paez‘s success as a
portraitist was not limited to New Spain: demand for his work
spread as far as Venezuela, Guatemala, and Peru. His
portraits were also presumably sent to Spain.
Navas Arnanz‘s library, carefully depicted so that many
of the titles are at least partially legible, includes
several identifiable volumes that refer to his education,
intellect and spiritual devotion. The collection includes a
set of royal decrees covering the Indies, an edition of
174
Manuel Toussaint, Pintura Colonial en México (Mexico,
D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1965), 178.
175
This small picture has not been published and is signed
―Jo. de Paez facit en Mexico.‖
133
Conradus (a thirteenth-century Cistercian scholar), and a
three-volume corpus of Spain‘s civil law code issued by
Philip IV in 1640.176 Also prominent is a two-volume edition
of the Corpus juris civilis, or Digestum Novum, a sixteenth-
century compilation of Roman civil law.177 The inkpot and
writing utensils on the table refer to his duties as
racionero, while the coat-of-arms reminds the viewer of his
standing among the Spanish elite. While some scholars have
suggested that timepieces in such portraits serve as mementi
mori, or rather unsubtle reminders of the passage of earthly
life, the clock on the writing table in this picture is
instilled with a specifically colonial significance. Clocks
of this quality – often made in England – were rare luxury
objects in New Spain and elsewhere in the Spanish Americas at
176
The legal code was drawn up originally under Philip II and
re-issued in 1640 by Philip IV. Commonly known as the Nueva
recopilación, the corpus‘s official title is Recopilación de
las leyes destos reynos, hecha por mandado de la Magestad
Católica del Rey don Felipe Segundo…que después de la ultima
impressión se han publicado por la Magestad Católica del Rey
don Felipe Quarto el Grande nuestro señor, (Madrid: Catalina
de Barrio y Angulo y Diego Diáz de la Carrera, 1640).
177
The full title of this edition, known commonly as the
Corpus juris civilis, is Digestum Nouum: Pandectarum iuris
ciuilis…sextae partis reliquum ac septimam eandémque
nouissimam Digestorum partem continens (Lyons: Apud Hugonem à
Porta, 1551-53).
134
the time.178 Thus, not only do the volumes in the library
attest to the intellectual quality of the sitter, the clock
and the silver inkwell (along with the coat-of-arms) attest
to his wealth and serve to reinforce his standing in New
Spain‘s colonial hierarchy.
Another portrait of a teenaged subject is that of Don
Francisco de Orense y Moctezuma by an unidentified painter
(pl. 48, 1761, Denver Art Museum, Frederick and Jan Mayer
Collection). This life-sized composition is striking for its
inclusion of the sitter‘s dog, the rare presence of a
landscape in the background, and the young man‘s remarkable
lineage.179 Though he wears a powdered wig, an elongated braid
tied with a black ribbon is visible running down his back to
the scabbard of his rapier. Don Francisco‘s mother, the tenth
marquise of Cerralbo, was born in 1712 and married Francisco
178
For a discussion of the significance of timepieces in
colonial portraiture, please see my entry in Philadelphia
2006, 454.
179
The inscription in the cartouche on the floor reads: ―El.
Exmo. Señor Dn. Francisco de Orense, Motezuma, deel Castillo,
y Guzman, Conde de Villalobos, Hijo Postumo, y Unico deel
Señor Dn. Francisco de Orense, y Motezuma, e el exma. Señora
da. Maria Manuela Motezuma, Nieto, de Silva, Marquesa de
Zerralbo, y Almarza. Año de 1761.‖ Tanslation: ―The Most
Excellent Señor Don Francisco de Orense y Moctezuma del
Castillo y Guzmán, Count of Villalobos, sole and posthumous
son of Señor Don Francisco de Orense y Moctezuma and the Most
Excellent Señora Doña Maria Manuela de Moctezuma Nieto de
Silva, Marquesa of Cerralbo and Almarza. The year 1761.‖
135
de Orense y Moctezuma in 1736. According to genealogical
records, Don Francisco was born in Salamanca sometime after
1742, making his adolescent appearance in this portrait
consistent with the inscribed date of 1761. The young count
was not to marry until the relatively late age of 32, when he
wed Maria Luisa de la Cerda Cernesio in Valencia, Spain on 4
Octuber 1774. No mention is made of his later title of
Marquis of Cerralbo because he did not inherit this from his
mother until she died in 1787.180 Don Francisco followed his
long-lived mother to the grave only two years later at the
age of 47.
Don Francisco‘s family, which had numerous ties to some
of the most powerful noble houses of Spain, had a long
history in Mexico. Rodrigo Pacheco y Osorio (c. 1565-1640),
IV marquis of Cerralbo, served as viceroy of New Spain from
1624-1635.181 Pacheco y Osorio‘s viceregency is one of the
most significant (and most studied) of the seventeenth
century as he acted as Philip IV‘s hand-picked agent to
settle the increasingly violent rivalry between the previous
180
Maria Manuela Moctezuma died on 6 June 1787 in Salamanca.
181
Please see C. R. Boxer‘s review of Hanke, Lewis, and Celso
Rodríguez, Guia de las Fuentes en el Archivo General de
Indias Para el Estudio de la Administracion Virreinal
Espanola en Mexico y en el Peru, 1535-1700 (Koln/Vienna,
1977) in Journal of Latin American Studies 10 (1978), 361-62.
136
viceroy and his political nemesis, the archbishop of Mexico.
Pacheco y Osorio was a consummate statesman and courtier, and
upon his return enjoyed numerous appointments from Philip IV.
The death of his son without heir allowed the Cerralbo title
to fall to the Nieto de Silva branch of the family, which
united the houses of Cerralbo and Almarza.182
Seven generations separate Don Francisco de Orense y
Moctezuma from the Aztec king Moctezuma II‘s daughter, Isabel
(11 July 1510 – 1550). Isabel married Juan de Cano Saavedra,
a native of Cáceres (Spain), in Mexico City in the year 1532.
It was was Isabel‘s third marriage to a Spaniard (sixth in
total) and the most enduring; together for the next twenty
years, they produced five children.183 Isabel de Moctezuma
and Juan de Cano‘s son, Juan Cano de Moctezuma (1536 – 1579),
returned to the ancestral home in Extremadura, where he
182
For documents relating to Pacheco y Osorio as viceroy,
please see Lewis Hanke and Celso Rodríguez (eds.), Guía de
las fuentes en el Archivo General de Indias para el estudio
de la administración virreinal en México y en el Perú 1535-
1700, 3 vols. (Köln and Wien: Böhlau Verlag, 1977), vol. II,
142-157.
183
Donald E. Chipman, Moctezuma‘s Children: Aztec Royalty
under Spanish Rule, 1520-1700 (Austin: University of Texas
Press, 2005), 52. According to Chipman, ―Spaniards viewed
Isabel Moctezuma as the principal heir of the late emperor,
Moctezuma II…she received lucrative revenues of one of the
cities that had formed the Triple Alliance of the Aztecs.‖ In
this sense, she was an encomendiera benefiting from the
services of her native people.
137
married a Spanish woman of minor nobility in 1559. Juan‘s
brother, Pedro Cano de Moctezuma, also returned to Spain and
married in Córdoba. The Cáceres and Córdoba branches of the
Moctezuma line were joined only a generation later when
Pedro‘s daughter married his brother Juan‘s daughter. The
mother and father of the present sitter, Don Francisco, Count
of Villalobos, were both descendants of this original
marriage of first cousins.184
It was customary, especially during the second half of
the eighteenth century, for families of Spanish (peninsular)
nobility and the creole elite in New Spain to commission
portraits of their offspring at significant moments of their
young lives. The best known type of commemorative
portraiture is the tradition of the so-called monjas
coronadas. However, other rites of passage are recorded,
such as collegiate commencement, marriage, and professional
and social promotion (including awards of title). The
portrait of Don Francisco and his greyhound fits squarely
into this tradition, but the painting is nevertheless highly
184
In fact, the young count‘s parents shared a set of
grandparents. Of course, this situation was not uncommon
among Spanish and other European nobility during this time
period. For an account of Moctezuma‘s heirs immediately
following the Spanish conquest of Mexico, please see Chipman
2005, 45.
138
unusual for a number of reasons, not least of which for the
artist‘s magnificent handling of the subject. The inclusion
of a tropical landscape, seen through the portico on the
composition‘s right side, is seldom found in contemporaneous
portraits in Mexico. Landscapes, though rare, are found in
examples of the same period by artists in Puerto Rico and
Lima, Peru.185
Don Francisco, the young count of Villalobos, inherited
his title from his mother, who also held the titles of
Marquesa of Cerralbo and Almarza. The living descendant of
the subject of the portrait is Don Fernando de Aguilera y
Narváez, Count of Villalobos, who succeeded to the titles XX
Marqués de Cerralbo and XV Marqués de Almarza in 1982.
Perhaps the best known descendant of this family was the XVII
Marquis of Cerralbo, Enrique de Aguilera y Gamboa (1845-
185
For example, José Campeche (San Juan, 1751-1809) composed
many of his portraits outdoors, and Pedro José Díaz (Lima,
active 1765-1810) also incorporated landscapes, often visible
through porticos similar to that seen here. For Campeche see
Teodoro Vidal, José Campeche: Retratista de una Época (San
Juan, PR: Ediciones Alba, 2005); for Díaz and portrait-
painting in Lima, see my entry on the Portrait of Doña Rosa
María Salazar y Gabiño, condesa de Monteblanco y Montemar in
Philadelphia 2006, 454; and Suzanne L. Stratton-Pruitt,
Virgins, Saints and Angels: South American Paintings 1600-
1825 from the Thoma Collection (Stanford, CA: Skira, in
association with The Cantor Center for Visual Arts at
Stanford University, 2006), 210-211.
139
1922), the famed politician, intellectual and collector.
Having been appointed senator in 1885 by Carlos de Borbón,
the pretender to the Spanish throne, he finally left politics
in the wake of the dissolution of the Spanish empire in 1898.
From that point, he dedicated himself to acquiring a
collection of art and artifacts emulating those he had seen
in Italy, and to writing on Spanish history as a member of
both the Royal Academy of History and the Academy of San
Fernando (Fine Arts). Today, his collection is housed in the
Museo de Cerralbo in Madrid, and includes works by El Greco,
Ribera, Zurbarán, Van Dyck and Luis Paret y Alcázar (who
himself was partially responsible for training the great
Puerto Rican painter, José Campeche).186
Seats of the house of Cerralbo are found in both Spain
and Mexico. In Mexico, the town‘s name is spelled Cerralvo,
which is consistent with sixteenth-century Spanish
orthography.187 Cerralvo, located in Nuevo Leon, was known for
its mining, which is how the family secured its fortune in
186
The Museo de Cerralbo is overseen by a board of Trustees
that includes the current marquis, the archbishop of Madrid,
and the president of the Supreme Court.
187
The founding of the Real Academia Española in 1713 was an
attempt to reform language and spelling not only in the
Iberian peninsula, but also in Latin America. The standards
established by the academy, which continue to develop today,
are not always adhered to in Mexico and other areas of the
Spanish Americas.
140
the colonies. It is likely that this portrait represents the
young man amidst the family holdings in Cerralvo, which he
had inherited after his uncle‘s death in 1752. As male heir
to the Cerralvo estate and mines, he would have been in a
position to travel there around the time the picture was
painted in 1760 or 1761. His stay in Mexico, during which he
would have overseen silver mining production, may help to
explain why he did not marry until his return to Spain.
Although he would not officially inherit the Cerralbo title
until 1787, he appears to be acting upon his widowed mother‘s
behalf by traveling to New Spain in order to supervise the
family‘s assets in the region.
The picture itself is a remarkable example of colonial
portraiture. Because of the sitter‘s circumstances, it has a
markedly Spanish appearance to it, including the
expressionless, powdered face, the tidy wig and the presence
of the greyhound. However, certain aspects are decidedly
criollo. His wig partially obscures an exceedingly long
braid of dark brown hair that nearly reaches the hem of his
embroidered jacket, while the cartouche on the floor
identifies him, his family and his titles, for posterity.188
188
The placement of the inscription follows a precedent set
in the colonies in the early seventeenth century by Alonso
141
In all likelihood, the picture commemorates his arrival and
subsequent administrations of the family estate, and who
better to accompany the young man on this journey but his
trustworthy, four-legged companion.
Portraits of well-to-do merchants and business owners
abounded in the second half of the century. One fine example
is Ignacio Estrada‘s portrait of Don Juan Sastre y Subirats,
which is dated 1788 (pl. 49, Frederick and Jan Mayer
Collection, Denver). Unfortunately little is known of this
Catalan businessman other than the town and date of his
birth, and his occupation as a merchant residing in Mexico
City during his adulthood. The painter, Ignacio Estrada,
presents the sitter as a sophisticated gentleman situated
before a red swag of velvet drapery in an almost unfurnished
antechamber. The sitter is depicted as though he is formally
welcoming a visitor to his home.189 While the room itself is
not opulent, the sitter‘s dress, his sword, the clock, and
the marble-topped table attest to his wealth and nobility
without distracting the viewer from the likeness of the
López de Herrera; see his Archbishop García Guerra (1609,

Museo Nacional de Virreinato, Tepotzotlán).
189
While many Spanish colonial portraits fall into this
―guest reception‖ type, perhaps the best known format of
secular male portraiture situates the subject standing or
sitting in his study, surrounded by books, a writing desk,
and a coat of arms.
142
sitter himself. While his maternal surname was well-
established in Catalonia (Subirats is a municipality outside
Barcelona), and ―Sastre‖ (meaning ―tailor‖ in both Catalan
and Spanish) was known from Barcelona to Madrid, these names
were rarely found in Mexico during the viceregal period.
Sastre y Subirats hailed from the town of Santa Maria de
Piera, part of the metropolis of Barcelona.190
The inscription in the cartouche at the lower left of
the canvas makes clear reference to the sitter‘s date of
birth, 8 May 1738, and the date of the picture‘s completion
(8 May 1788), which together indicate that the picture was
commissioned to commemorate Sastre‘s fiftieth birthday. The
commemorative nature of the picture also allows us to
securely date the picture to the first half of the year 1788.
This unusually precise dating is not possible in many
portraits of the colonial era because often they bear only
the date of the sitter‘s death, leaving open the possibility
that the painting was executed post mortem. Other details
found in the composition highlight the personal nature of
190
The parish church of Santa Maria de Piera, where the
sitter was baptized, is still active and even maintains a
website for its parishioners. The municipality of Subirats,
outside Barcelona in the Penedès Valley, is best known for
the quality of its winemaking. See
http://www.parroquiadepiera.com.
143
this portrait. For example, the correspondence that Subirats
holds in his left hand is addressed to him and bears the
initials ―I.S.M.P.B.‖. In this case, the initials act as a
form of postmark and stand for the Iglesia de Santa Maria de
Piera, Barcelona. The references to the parish makes clear
the sitter‘s devotion to Santa Maria de Piera, it also
suggests that the picture was destined for the church
itself.191
The Subirats surname is ancient and emerged first in
connection with Catalan nobility. The union of Elvira de
Subirats and Armengol VIII, count of Barcelona-Urgell in the
twelfth century, produced a daughter, Aurembiaix in 1196.
The countess Aurembiaix of Barcelona in turn married Pedro I
of Portugal in 1229, unifying two of the most significant
dynasties on the Iberian peninsula. By the seventeenth
century, the principality of Catalonia was facing economic
191
The use of portraits such as this one, in the context of
devotion (i.e., financial support) to a particular
confraternity or parish, was common in both Spain and New
Spain. For example, the series executed by Juan José Esquivel
for the confraternity of the Santísimo Cristo de Burgos in
Mexico City hung in the chapel itself until it was removed to
be housed in the Museo Nacional de Historia. See Michael A.
Brown, ―José Mariano de Farfán de los Godos y Miranda‘s
Portrait of Fernando González de Collantes Zevallos,‖
unpublished report, Mayer object files, Denver Art Museum
(Frederick and Jan Mayer Collection, Denver).
144
decline and political unrest. None other than Juan de
Palafox y Mendoza, on a visitation to Barcelona on behalf of
the count-duke of Olivares, remarked that the city council
was run by merchants and artisans and was dangerously hostile
to the Crown. By 1640, armed revolts erupted in both
Catalonia and Portugal. The same occurred in the eighteenth
century during the War of Spanish Succession, when the
Catalans sided with England and Austria. Philip V rewarded
Barcelona for her disloyalty by prohibiting the use of the
Catalan language and restricting trade. The ban on trade
between Catalonia and the Americas was not lifted until 1778,
and it is in this year or shortly thereafter that Juan Sastre
y Subirats likely left for the lucrative shores (and mines)
of New Spain in order to take advantage of this newly-opened
trade route.
The objects arranged on the tabletop include a leather-
bound volume (perhaps a ledger), a silver inkwell and feather
pens, the sitter‘s tri-corner hat, and a mantle clock in gold
rocaille. The table itself is ornately carved in the rococo
tradition and topped with an inlaid marble surface. The clock
is signed by its manufacturer, ―DavHubert London.‖ David
Hubert the Elder joined the clockmakers‘ guild in London in
1714, and together with his son, who joined the firm in 1727,
145
was among the leading clockmakers of eighteenth-century
England.192 The market for Hubert clocks extended to Spain as
the father-son firm employed an agent offering their clocks
there. Their clocks continue to turn up on the Spanish market
to this day. The prominence of the mantle clock in the
portrait‘s composition, which overtly emphasized the wealth
and standing of Sastre y Subirats, may have also represented
a discreet allusion to the sitter‘s political loyalties in
that England had thrown its support behind Catalonia – and
Catalans themselves continued to be treated with distrust in
the colonies. It appears that Juan Sastre y Subirats must
have returned to his native Barcelona at some point following
the execution of the painting – and after he had made his
fortune in the colonial American market.193
One further sub-genre that became widespread in
eighteenth-century New Spain was the funerary portraiture of
192
Thanks to John Carlton-Smith, the antiquarian clock dealer
in London, for furnishing this information regarding David
Hubert and his firm‘s connection to Spain. In his words,
―Hubert clocks are always of the highest quality.‖ Carlton-
Smith dated the clock in the Mayer portrait to mid-century,
meaning that it was likely designed by David Hubert II, who
took over the company in 1743.
193
Michael A. Brown, unpublished object report, Mayer object
file, New World Department, Denver Art Museum. I include a
genealogy of descendents of Subirats, which makes it clear
the man returned to his native Barcelona and his descendants
did not return to New Spain.
146
children. The portrait of Don Mariano Francisco de Cardona
(pl. 50, ca. 1768, San Antonio Museum of Art, Texas), is by
an unidentified Mexican painter and depicts its young subject
on a funerary bier. The picture is an example of a type that
had an established tradition in Europe, especially Spain. The
genre took on a character of its own in Mexico, where the
subjects are depicted as miniature members of the clergy or
archangels.194 As in the depictions of crowned nuns, portraits
like that of Mariano Francisco de Cardona reflect the purity
and piety of the sitter as well as the social and religious
status of his or her family.
Conclusions
In many ways, this rise in portrait commissions in New
Spain parallels the Golden Age of Dutch painting, during
which the growing wealth of the merchant classes resulted in
the production of huge quantities of portraiture. It is
difficult to pinpoint a specific date that the society
portrait began to emerge in full force in New Spain, but it
occurred sometime in the first two decades of the eighteenth
century, meaning that the earliest commissions seem to have
194
Please see my entry in Philadelphia 2006, 394.
147
coincided with the emergence of the genres of casta painting
and the monjas coronadas in Mexico.195
In the years immediately following Rodríguez Juárez‘s
depictions of the duke of Linares, archbishop Lanciego, and
the Saint Rose of Lima with Female Donor, there was an
explosion of portrait commissions in Mexico City and other
economic centers in New Spain. The images of crowned nuns
have attracted considerable recent scholarly attention.196
These paintings, like those known as casta paintings seem to
be inextricably tied to issues of Mexican identity. While
both the monja coronada and casta genres were found in other
areas of the Spain‘s American empire; the popularity of such
images in Mexico is unmatched. Beyond the quantity, these
pictorial types lend themselves particularly well to gender-
and race-specific inquiry, as well as academic methods that
employ social anthropology and feminist or post-colonial
theory. These factors help to explain why numerous
monographic studies of both castas and crowned nuns have been
195
Ilona Katzew has identified the earliest casta series, of
which four canvases are known, one of which (Collection of
Frederick and Jan Mayer, Denver) is signed ―Arellano‖ and
dated ―17011.‖ See Katzew 2004, 9-11.
196
See especially Córdova (2006) and also Alarcon 2008, which
includes a CD-ROM database of interactive materials and a
searchable database of 119 portraits of nuns.
148
published in the previous two decades, while none has been
produced that focuses on the secular, or civil, female.
Civilian and domestic portraits in New Spain feature
Spanish and criollo men, women, and children of Mexico‘s
emerging elite, thus, with a very few exceptions, these
sitters were racially homogenous,197 wealthy, and members of
what have been dubbed Mexico‘s ―Great Families,‖ whose
patriarchs have tended to be judged through modern eyes as
either the engineers or the willing beneficiaries of the
social injustice inherent to the colonial apparatus. This may
help explain why the portraiture of the colonial elite in
Mexico has attracted so little scholarly attention.198
One of the most significant changes that occurred was
the sudden importance of the nuclear family in colonial
portraiture. One can only speculate why the family did not
197
The vast majority of painted portraits feature Spanish or
criollo (i.e., Caucasian) sitters. There are many notable
exceptions, such as the portrait of Sebastiana Iñés Josefa de
San Agustín, an Indian noblewoman (1757, Museo Franz Mayer,
Mexico City).
198
A prime example is the portrait of Doña Rosa María Salazar
y Gabiño, condesa de Monteblanco y Montemar (Huber
Collection, New York), which I have attributed to Pedro José
Díaz. Together with her husband, the sitter owned one of the
largest slave populations in the Viceroyalty of Perú. See my
entry in Revelaciones 2006, 462 (my entry in the English
edition, Philadelphia 2006, contains an implausible
attribution to Cristóbal Lozano).
149
have an earlier artistic presence, since the family – from
conquest on – had formed the basic foundation of the economic
structure in the Spanish Americas. The family‘s emergence in
portraiture, however, does not manifest itself narrowly in
pictures of families seated together in the drawing room
(although such portraits do exist). Rather, in the early
stages of the eighteenth century, there is a rapid rise in
the interest of portraying the younger generations of the
Spanish and criollo elite. The crowned nuns are one
manifestation of this: the image of a young daughter or niece
taking the vows dressed in all manner of sumptuous finery,
often displayed in life size on canvas, reflected the piety,
prestige and wealth of her family. In some cases, the only
known portrait from certain families is that of the daughter
on the eve of her celestial nuptials, and in this sense, the
young daughter becomes a representative of the entire family.
In much the same way, depictions of young men and boys
reflected the entire family, as with the case of don Fernando
Navas, the boy depicted on the occasion of his school
graduation. Other sons were depicted during the course of
martial training, such as the portrait of Don Joaquín Sánchez
Pareja Narvaez, which is dated 1773 (pl. 51, Denver Art
Museum, Frederick and Jan Mayer collection). Having already
150
enrolled in the military academy at age 6, don Joaquín
reflects the virtue of his family.199 The letter in his right
hand is addressed to his grandparents in Cartagena de las
Indias, suggesting that this likeness was sent to his family
in South America.200
Taken as a whole, the group of paintings discussed in
this chapter attests to the importance of family, faith and
education in Criollo society in eighteenth-century New Spain.
The wide range of these pictures‘ dates, from about 1710 to
the late 1780s, serves to illustrate and highlight the fact
that the tradition of the society portrait, once established,
continued unbroken until the emergence of new academic models
in the final decade of the eighteenth century.
199
Mayer object files, New World Department, Denver Art
Museum.
200
The inscription reads: ―A mis abuelos los Señores Condes
de Santa Cruz de la Torre, Ms. ms. As., Cartegena de Indias.‖
151
CHAPTER IV
Portraiture and the
Rise of the Royal Academy of San Carlos, 1780-1800
Introduction
Portrait painting occupied a central role in the
development of the Academy of San Carlos, and directly
reflects the close ties, both political and artistic, with
the institution‘s peninsular model, the Academy of San
Fernando in Madrid. After a difficult gestational period in
which a number of initial attempts to form artists‘ academies
in Mexico were quashed, the movement finally took hold in
earnest during the last quarter of the eighteenth century
thanks to the support of both of the viceroy and the court in
Madrid. Realizing the potential advantages of exporting
Spanish academic ideals to the New World, the king himself
formally endorsed the plan. Sensing a growing inclination
toward independence (social and cultural, if not political)
in New Spain, the foundation of the Academy of San Carlos
would serve to regulate artistic trends and promulgate an
152
official (i.e., Spanish) style throughout the colony. Within
the first five years, the original faculty, which initially
had consisted of both creole and peninsular instructors in
fields such as painting, engraving and architecture, had been
replaced with a teaching staff made up entirely of Spanish
imports.201
One aspect of the portraits painted by academicians
that distinguished them from pre-existing examples found in
the colony was that they dispatched with the biographical
inscriptions that had been traditional in nearly all of
Mexican portraiture since the sixteenth century. This
development is one of the most remarkable shifts towards
continental artistic modes in any genre of painting to come
out of the academic movement‘s early years. It also signifies
an important shift in the collective outlook of the patrons
who were commissioning such pictures, for as I have argued
201
See Salvador Moreno, ―La Academia de San Carlos de Nueva
España y sus primeros maestros españoles,‖ in Actas del XXIII
Congreso Internacional de Historia del Arte. España entre el
Mediterraneo y el Atlántico, Granada, 1973, vol. 3, (Granada:
Universidad de Granada, Departamiento del Arte, 1978), 429-
433. An excellent overview of the Academy, and a brief
discussion of some of its principal and secondary members, is
found in Eloísa Uribe, ―El dibujo, La Real Academia de San
Carlos de Nueva España y las polémicas culturales del siglo
XVIII,‖ in Arte de las Academias: Francia y México siglos
XVIII-XIX (Mexico, D.F.: Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso,
UNAM and Conaculta, 1999), 45-58.
153
elsewhere, one reason for the prevalence of such inscriptions
was the brevity of many of the sitters‘ stays in the New
World.202 By the later eighteenth century, this was no longer
the case, and most of the sitters discussed in this chapter
were in New Spain for the remainder of their lives. This
brings up a curious paradox: while creoles and newly-arrived
Spaniards were more committed to remaining in New Spain, they
eschewed what had become a traditional hallmark of colonial
portraiture in favor of far more continental conventions.
This chapter explores the political and social significance
of this paradox and the role that the new Academy of San
Carlos played in developments in portrait painting in New
Spain.
Origins of the Academic Movement in Mexico
After the 1752 inauguration in Madrid of the Real
Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, the painters in the
viceroyalty of New Spain were eager to form a comparable
202
Many officials, both ecclesiastical and political, were
not in New Spain long enough to establish generational ties
to society, so the inscriptions were a practical way of
identifying the sitters and their achievements for subsequent
viewers. I would like to thank Steven N. Orso for first
pointing this out to me.
154
institution of their own. Miguel Cabrera (1695 - 1768) and
José de Ibarra (1688 - 1756), two of the most accomplished
painters in the American colonies during the eighteenth
century, were at the forefront of this nascent academic
movement. By 1754, they had begun holding organized classes
for the study of drawing in Cabrera‘s residence. Among the
painters in this ―society of artists‖ were Juan Patricio
Morlete Ruiz (1713 — ca. 1772), fray Miguel de Herrera
(active 1729 — 1780), and the immensely talented José de
Alcíbar (active 1751 — 1803).203
This move paralleled that of the Italian sculptor, Juan
Domingo Olivieri, who held painting classes in his home in
Madrid more than ten years before the official foundation of
the royal academy took place in the Spanish capital.204
Olivieri went on to assume the directorship in sculpture at
the newly-formed Real Academia de San Fernando. Cabrera and
203
Guadalupe Jimémez Codinach, México: su tiempo de nacer,
1750-1821 (Mexico City: Fomento Cultural Banamex, 1997), 100.
For Morlete Ruiz, see the biography by Juana Gutiérrez Haces
in Philadelphia 2006, 534. For Herrera, see Toussaint 1990,
151. For José de Alcíbar, the most influential of these
three, see Donna Pierce‘s biography in Philadelphia 2006,
527.
204
José Luis Barrio Moya, ―Algunos noticias sobre la vida y
la obra del Andrés de la Calleja,‖ Academia. Boletín de la
Real Academia de Bellas Arts de San Fernando 67 (1988): 318-
19. Olivieri was, along with Felipe de Castro, one of the
original directors of sculpture at the new academy in Madrid.
155
Ibarra, however, were ultimately unsuccessful in their
efforts as the school that they founded never received formal
endorsement from the king and ultimately amounted to little
more than an informal painters‘ society. The disappointing
final result notwithstanding, the significance of this early
effort at academic organization should not be underestimated.
The events of the subsequent decades have proven that the
seed planted by Ibarra and Cabrera would ultimately bear
fruit.
The foundation of the informal drawing academy was also
based on the example of Murillo‘s academy of 1660, in which
several of the most prominent artists in Seville gathered in
order to hone their skills and promote a particular artistic
style. Organized along the lines of the traditional Italian
academy, Murillo‘s society had a written set of guidelines
and a bureaucratic hierarchy charged with overseeing the
finances of the group.205 Although the motives behind Ibarra
205
For a transcription of the Academy of 1660‘s statutes, see
José Gestoso y Pérez, Biografía del pintor sevillano, Juan de
Valdés Leal (Sevilla, 1916). Peter Cherry, ―Murillo‘s Drawing
Academy,‖ in Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617-1682) :
Paintings From American Collections (New York: H.N. Abrams,
in association with the Kimbell Art Museum, 2002). See also
Jonathan Brown, The Drawings of Murillo (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1976), for an overview of Murillo‘s academy
and its workings. For Pacheco‘s earlier academy in Seville,
see Peter Cherry, ―Artistic Training and the Painters‘ Guild
156
and Cabrera‘s ―academy‖ remain obscure, the importance of
draftsmanship, which it shared with that of Murillo, and with
Pacheco‘s earlier academic ventures, suggests a shift in
artistic taste in Mexico City. It might be argued that
although these artists enjoyed a certain degree of autonomy
from predominant styles in Spain, it made economic sense to
keep up with trends on the other side of the Atlantic so that
they would continue to enjoy the patronage of the peninsular
elite in the colonies.
The Difficult Birth of the Mexican Academy
In 1778, Charles III sent his master engraver, don
Gerónimo Antonio Gil (1731 — 1798, see pl. 52), to Mexico to
act as artistic supervisor of the Royal Mint (Casa de
Moneda).206 In his youth, Gil had witnessed the emergence of
the Real Academia de San Fernando in Madrid. Later, having
studied both painting and engraving at the Academy, Gil rose
to prominence as a member of the faculty and earned accolades
in Seville,‖ in Velázquez in Seville (Edinburgh: National

Gallery of Scotland, 1996), 67-75.
206
See Ilona Katzew, ―Algunos datos nuevos sobre el fundador
de la Real Academia de San Carlos Jerónimo Antonio Gil,‖
Memoria (1998): 31-65.
157
with his designs for commemorative medals (pl. 53).207 His
esteem at the Academy is indicated by his early project to
design and engrave the allegorical frontispiece for the
Statutes of the new institution, published in 1757 (pl.
54).208 The engraving is characterized by a highly effective
visual rhetoric that blends traditional heraldic symbols (the
crown and cross, the golden fleece) with classicizing
elements (the Roman fasces, trumpet, arrows and olive
branches) and articles of the trade (mahlstick, mallet, and
architect‘s square). In part, it was this aptitude for
synthesis that won him the king‘s admiration and ultimately
his eventual assignment to New Spain. Gil‘s adherence to neo-
classical ideals, evidenced by the style and rhetoric of his
art (pl. 55, Fall of Byzantium, 1756, Academia de San
Fernando, Madrid), and by such literary efforts as his
translation of Gérard Audran‘s treatise Las proporciones del
cuerpo humano, medidas por las más bellas estatuas de la
207
For other coins and medals designed by Gil, see Alfonso
García Ruíz, Guía de la exhibición de monedas y medallas
(Mexico, D.F.: Museo Nacional de Historia, Castillo de
Chapultepec, 1950).
208
Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Estatutos
de la Real Academia de S. Fernando (Madrid: R. Ramírez,
1757).
158
antigüedad, must also have had something to do with his
favorable position at court (see pl. 56, 57).209
By 1781, Gil and Fernando José Mangino, executive
director of the mint, had petitioned the viceroy Martín de
Mayorga (1721—1783) to expand the scope of the mint‘s
training facilities, until then limited to instruction in
engraving and casting techniques used in the production of
coin.210 Mayorga acted quickly and within a mere two weeks had
granted the necessary provisions for a school that included
the disciplines of painting, architecture, and sculpture.211
His decisiveness in the moment is even more remarkable
because at the time he had consulted neither the king nor the
minister of the Council of the Indies, José de Gálvez (1720-
1787).212 The foundation of the Real Academia de San Carlos de
209
Gérard Audran, Les proportions du corps humain, mesurées
sur les plus belles figures de l‘antiquité, (Paris: G.
Audran, 1683). Gil‘s translation of 1780 was published in
Madrid. Facsimile edition in Eduardo Báez Macías, Jerónimo
Antonio Gil y su traducción de Gérard Audran, (Mexico City:
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de
Investigaciones Estéticas, 2001).
210
See the portrait of Mayorga, attributed to José Germán de
Álfaro, 1779, Museo Nacional de Historia, Mexico.
211
David Marley, Proyecto, estatutos y demás documentos
relacionados al establecimiento de la Real Academia de
pintura, escultura y arquitectura denominada de San Carlos de
Nueva España (1781-1802), (Mexico City: Rolston-Bain, 1984),
i-ii.
212
Ibid., ii. Gálvez, in his positions as Indies council
minister and visitor-general, oversaw all matters related to
159
Nueva España was officially established via Carlos III‘s
decree from Madrid on Christmas Day of 1783.213 By this time,
however, Mayorga had been replaced as viceroy of New Spain by
Matías de Gálvez y Gallardo (1717-1784), brother of the
afore-mentioned Visitor-General José. Matías de Gálvez, who
had earned a considerable reputation as a military commander
alongside his son, Bernardo, in Louisiana and later in
Guatemala, made his triumphal entry into the capital city of
Mexico in April 1783.214
Classes at the academy had been underway since November
1781, and Gálvez‘s most significant role in its foundation
was to expedite the king‘s formal endorsement and to
subsequently publish it in a broadsheet of 2 April 1784.215
the governance of the Americas. See the portrait of Gálvez,

anonymous artist, circa 1785, Museo Nacional de Historia,
Mexico.
213
Abelardo Carrillo y Gariel, Datos sobre la Academia de San
Carlos de Nueva España: el arte en México de 1781 a 1863,
Mexico City, 1939, 9-10.
214
Chavez, Thomas, ―Matías de Gálvez,‖ in Painting a New
World: Mexican Art and Life 1521-1821, (Denver: the Denver
Art Museum, 2004), 250. See also Carolyn Kinder Carr and
Mercedes Águeda Villar, Legacy: Spain and the United States
in the Age of Independence, 1763-1848 (Washington, D.C.:
Smithsonian Institution, 2007), cats. 19 and 22.
215
Charles III signed the formal decree in Madrid on
Christmas Day of 1783 (Carrillo y Gariel, 9-10). The academy
opened officially on 4 November 1785 although classes began
four years earlier under viceregal patronage; see Marcus B.
Burke, ―The Sculptor Manuel Tolsá,‖ in New York (Metropolitan
Museum) 1990, 490.
160
However, his involvement should not be underestimated
considering the fact that the academic movement, the first
inclinations of which had emerged in Mexico in the 1750s, was
finally ratified under his official protection. Even allowing
for the different peculiarities of the two academies‘
histories, the speed with which the movement came to fruition
in Mexico was remarkable. In Madrid, the time it took from
forming the junta preparatoria to inaugurating the new
academy was roughly eight years, whereas in Mexico less than
two years elapsed from proposal to royal endorsement (while
classes had already begun during the interim). Moreover,
Gálvez‘s support of the institution is made clear by his
instrumental role in both the planning and writing of the
statutes of the new academy.216
It was his involvement and stewardship that provided
the impetus for a life-size portrait commission of Matías de
Gálvez by the academician Andrés López (pl. 58, Museo
Nacional del Virreinato, Tepotzotlán, Mexico). The picture,
which dates from 1790-91, posthumously commemorates the
viceroy in his role as Charles III‘s surrogate patron and
216
See Estatutos, the first section of which is signed by
Gálvez; the conclusion is signed by his son and successor,
Bernardo Conde de Gálvez.
161
protector of the Academy of San Carlos.217 The canvas is part
of a small group of portraits, all painted during the span of
about a decade, that document for posterity the nature of the
academy, the personalities behind its foundation, and the
evolution of its artistic mission. The group includes three
portraits by Rafael Ximeno y Planes, who arrived from his
native Spain in May 1794 to assume directorship of the
academy‘s painting program.218 These portraits depict Gil (see
pl. 52), the sculptor Manuel Tolsá (pl. 59, Museo Nacional de
Arte, Mexico City), and the silversmith José María de
Rodallega (pl. 60, Dallas Museum of Art, on loan from a
private collection). Among related works are paintings by
Andés López and engraved portraits of Gerónimo Antonio Gil
and Matías de Gálvez published by the engraver Tomás Suria in
1785; the prints were employed as frontispieces of important
publications of the 1780s and 1790s. Rounding out the group
217
See M. A. Brown‘s entry in Denver 2004, 247-249,
especially note 1. The picture measures 226cm x 155cm and
bears no visible signature. See also the entry by Juana
Gutiérrez Haces in Philadelphia 2006, which corroborates the
attribution to López.
218
Diego Angulo Iñiguez, La Academia de Bellas Artes de
Méjico y sus pinturas españolas (Seville, 1935), 45; and
Brown, Thomas Anthony, The Academy of San Carlos of New Spain
(Durham, N.C.: Duke University, 1970), 33. See also Brown,
Thomas Anthony, La Academia De San Carlos De La Nueva Españ
a
(SepSetentas, 299-300. México: Secretaría de Educación
Pública, 1976).
162
of portraits are two official portraits of late eighteenth-
century viceroys that embody the mature neo-Classicist trends
that had taken hold at the academy by the 1790s. Apart from
the engraved portraits, each of these likenesses is unusual
in that it eschews the traditional inscriptions and instead
relies only on visual appearance and narrative iconography to
identify the sitters and their achievements. The portrait of
Gálvez was likely the first of a series of commissions from
the Academy itself to create a portrait gallery not unlike
those found in ecclesiastical and academic institutions
throughout Mexico and Spain.
Gálvez as Protector: Artistic Tradition and Context
Compositionally, Andrés López‘s painting closely
recalls earlier precedents in the style that held sway at the
Bourbon court in Madrid and would have been known in New
Spain through prints and copies (not to mention through those
artists who had themselves traveled from Spain who would have
known such works first-hand). For example, the work of Anton
Rafael Mengs and Pompeo Batoni was particularly influential
at the Spanish court during the second half of the eighteenth
century. Two relevant examples are Mengs‘ Portrait of Thomas
163
Connolly of Castletown (1758, National Gallery, Dublin) and
Batoni‘s Portrait of Count Kirill Grigoriewitsch Razumovsky
(1766, private collection).
Of particular significance for the type of composition
and iconography employed by López in his portrait of Gálvez
is Antonio González Ruíz‘s Portrait of Ferdinand VI as
Protector of the Arts and Sciences (pl. 61, 1754, Museo de la
Real Academia de San Fernando, Madrid). In this allegorical
likeness, the Spanish monarch is simultaneously offered the
trumpet of fame, the palm branch of immortality, and the
caduceus, which here represents both medicine and
enlightenment. Directly at his feet is a putto with
draftsman‘s tools, emphasizing the art of drawing as the
foundation of the liberal art of architecture. In the
disposition of the sitter and the narrative aspects of the
mise-en-scène, López‘s full-length portrait adheres to the
same tradition. Though the likeness is borrowed from the
half-length of Gálvez in the Museo Nacional de Historia (pl.
62), which is signed by López, the composition and
iconography of the two pictures are fundamentally different.
The half-length presents the sitter in his official state
persona, accompanied by a biographical inscription that lists
his military and political offices, along with his coat-of-
164
arms, a field marshal‘s baton, and writing accouterments
befitting an executive.219 The full-length portrait, however,
eschews the heraldic imagery and the inscription in favor of
a purely iconographical presentation. While the inkwell,
quills and paper are still present on the viceroy‘s desk, the
implication is that he was recently busy with affairs of the
academy rather than those of state. Indeed, one may presume
that the leather-bound volume under Gálvez‘s tricorn hat
contains the statutes of the recently-formed Royal Academy of
San Carlos. The scene in the background, towards which the
viceroy offers a paternal hand, refers to the didactic
methods and practices of the academy that Gálvez had
specifically promoted. While there is no doubt that the image
is one of the royal surrogate, the narrative of the
composition emphasizes instead his role as champion of the
arts and promoter of education.
López‘s portrait of the viceroy fits in a broader
historical tradition of pictures of statesmen as
institutional patrons. One of the closest Iberian parallels
219
See Meyer and Ciancas 1994, cat. 100. The inscription is
transcribed: ―El excelentísimo señor don Matías de Gálvez y
Gallardo, teniente general de los reales ejércitos de su
majestad, virrey gobernador, capitán general de la Nueva
España y presidente de la Real Audiencia. Juró los referidos
empleos el dia 29 de Abril de 1783.‖
165
to the López portrait, however, is the likeness of José de
Carvajal y Lancaster, Ferdinand VI‘s minister of state, by
Andrés de la Calleja (pl. 63, 1754, Museo de la Real Academia
de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid). Upon the minister‘s
death on 8 April 1754, the Academy‘s Junta decided to
commission two monuments to his memory. Both resultant works
of art (Calleja‘s painting and a marble portrait bust by
Academy sculptors Juan Domingo Olivieri and Felipe de Castro)
were exhibited to great public approbation at the Real
Seminario de Nobles during the Academy‘s commencement
ceremony of 1745.220 In his oval-shaped composition, Calleja
depicts Carvajal as the king‘s appointed protector of the
Real Academia de San Fernando. He presides over the Academy‘s
awards ceremony of 1753.221 In recognition of second-place
honors, Carvajal offers a silver medal to Mariano Sánchez, a
thirteen year-old graduate of the third (elementary) level of
painting.222
A brief sketch of the man whose painting (and teaching)
was once among the most sought-after in Spain is relevant
here in order to fully illustrate the relationship between
the academy in Madrid and its sister foundation in Mexico
220
Azcárate, 54.
221
Ibid., 55.
222
Ibid.
166
City. Calleja (1705-1785), whose renown during the eighteenth
century has now long passed into obscurity, enjoyed a string
of career successes that began with his appointment as pintor
de cámara to the prince of Asturias in 1734. Among other
achievements, he was named director of painting at the newly
incorporated Academia de San Fernando on 8 December 1753 and
subsequently served as its general director from 18 January
1778 until his death in 1785.223 Calleja won major commissions
from both ecclesiastical patrons and the court in Madrid
throughout his artistic career.224 Though exact parallels are
admittedly difficult to identify, his style certainly tended
more towards that of Mengs or Louis-Michel Van Loo than that
of Tiepolo or Luis Paret y Alcázar.225
A comparison of the works by López and Calleja supports
the argument that the Calleja portrait provides an artistic –
though not compositional - precedent for Andrés López‘s
picture of the viceroy Gálvez. Carvajal sits in a lavish
223
Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (Madrid),
Distribución de los premios concedidos por el rey N. S. a los
discipulos de las tres nobles artes hecha por la Real
Academia de San Fernando (Madrid, 1753-1808), Appendix.
224
For notable examples, see Barrio Moya 1988, 318ff.
225
It has also been noted that in both his religious pictures
and his portraits, Calleja tended toward a style reminiscent
of Spanish court painters of the seventeenth century and
borrowed designs from such artists as Bernini and Peter Paul
Rubens.
167
fauteuil dressed in attire appropriate to his nobility and
status as royal favorite. His coat, which is embroidered in
spun gold, is open to reveal a fashionable silk waistcoat in
the French style. Hanging from an ornate, jeweled chain, the
Order of the Golden Fleece rests prominently in the center of
his torso. He is arranged in a stage-like setting of a
sweeping swag of crimson drapery and architectural elements
like the bundled pilasters and the column base at the left.
In the background, behind the sitter‘s proper left elbow,
stands a terracotta copy of a Hellenistic sculpture group of
Bacchus dangling a bunch of grapes above the hapless Cupid.226
The visual and narrative parallels between Calleja‘s
work and that of López are striking. With the inclusion of
writing desks and documents in both pictures, the sitters‘
role as administrator is emphasized, while overt reference is
made to his sponsorship of young students. The achievement
and progress of the students is depicted as a direct result
of the stewardship of these two statesmen. Gálvez holds the
magisterial baton of command while Carvajal sports the golden
fleece; both are explicit symbols of their offices and their
226
The fact that this object is terracotta, rather than a
plaster cast, is supported by the fact that such sculptures
were award prizes during the 1753 ceremony. See Premios. Note
prize for terracotta copies during this year.
168
service to the king. The portraits fit into a pictorial
tradition that also includes the slightly later portrait of
Manuel Godoy as Founder of the Instituto Pestalozziano by
Agustín Esteve Marqués (Valencia, Museo de Bellas Artes).
Commissioned on the occasion of Godoy‘s foundation of the
military academy, the portrait shows the ―Prince of Peace‖ in
a similar pose to that of the viceroy Gálvez while the
beneficiaries of his patronage populate the middle ground.
In each of these works, including that of Ferdinand as
protector of the arts and sciences, the sitter is portrayed
not merely as an ideal of authority and stewardship, but also
as a champion of education and enlightenment. In sum, he is
presented as the face of a new Bourbon ideal of enlightened
princely virtue.
Images of Matías de Gálvez, statesman
Since its initial attribution to the hand of Andres
López, it has wrongly been assumed that the likeness of
Matías de Gálvez was executed during the viceroy‘s nearly
two-year reign (1783-84).227 The presence of the life-size
227
The attribution was first made by Xavier Moyssén in ―Dos
pinturas de la Academia de San Carlos,‖ Boletín INAH 25
169
plaster cast, avidly studied by the advanced students in the
background of the painting, immediately brings up a
reasonable doubt concerning this date. In fact, the painting
was likely not commissioned until some seven years after the
viceroy‘s death.228 The plaster nude is illuminated by a heavy
chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The candle-lit scene is
in part an overt reference to the practice of holding studio
hours well into the evening, as discussed in the Statutes of
the academy.229 The scene also illustrates the didactic
significance held by such casts and models in the classrooms
of the academy.
No sooner had Gerónimo Antonio Gil landed in Mexico
than he began a lengthy campaign to acquire copies of antique
(1966), 11-144. What little we know of López‘s life can be

found in a handful of publications. For his role as one the
academy‘s first instructors, see Abelardo Carrillo y Gariel,
Datos sobre la Academia de San Carlos de Nueva España: El
arte en México de 1781 a 1863 (Mexico City: Academia de San
Carlos, 1939), 16. Biographical sketches may be found (with
some inconsistencies) in Agustín Velázquez Chávez, Tres
siglos de pintura colonial Méxicana (Mexico City: Editorial
Polis, 1939), and Manuel Toussaint, Pintura Colonia en México
(Mexico City: Impr. Universitaria, 1965), 175-76.
228
This argument was first advanced in my entry ―The Portrait
of Don Matías de Gálvez y Gallardo as Viceprotector of the
Academia de San Carlos,‖ in Denver 2006, 246-249.
229
Statute 17 includes a brief description of nighttime
duties, including the lighting of studio fireplaces (and
presumably, candles). The ―estudios nocturnos‖ of the
academy made necessary the position of conserge, who ―tendrá
limpias las salas, puestas las luces, y surtidas las mesas de
lo preciso para copier y dibuxar.‖
170
statuary and other instructional aids from the collection of
the academy in Madrid for use in the mint‘s training program.
It was not until 1790 that, nearly seven years after the
Gálvez portrait‘s putative date, the first group of large-
scale sculptures arrived from Spain.230 The prominence of the
statue in the composition of the work, not to mention its
narrative significance to the mise-en-scène, is a testament
to the importance of models in the academy‘s curriculum.
Furthermore, its presence establishes the terminus ante quem
for the portrait.
The plaster cast in question appears to be an
adaptation of a large-scale work (perhaps the documented
flayed nude, known as an écorché, see pl. 64) that arrived in
the 1790 shipment, which remains in the collection of the
230
The correspondence of 21 March 1778 from José de Gálvez
(writing on Gil‘s behalf) to the Count of Floridablanca (then
the vice-protector of the Madrid academy) requesting the
expedition of a collection of models, bas-reliefs, and busts
is reproduced in Genaro Estrada, Algunos papeles para la
historia de las bellas artes en México (Mexico: Academia
Nacional de San Carlos, 1935), 14-15. For the date of the
later arrivals of plaster casts and antique replicas, see
Clara Bargellini and Elizabeth Fuentes, Guía que permite
captar lo bello: Yesos y dibujos de la Academia de San
Carlos, 1778-1916 (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
México, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, 1989).
171
Academia Nacional, Mexico.231 Such anatomical figures were
often used in order to study musculature more closely. López,
perhaps for reasons of decorum, fleshed out the figure so
that it appears more along the lines of an antique athlete.
The écorché, though now severely damaged, is visible in its
original state in an 1800 drawing by Felipe González (Mexico
City, Museo de Academia) in which its pose echoes that of the
figure in López‘s painting.232
The dating of the picture to 1783 is probably based on
its similarity to a half-length portrait of the viceroy
Gálvez also by Andrés López (pl. 62, Museo Nacional de
Historia, Mexico).233 This picture was likely executed
shortly after Gálvez assumed his role as viceroy, as it was
destined for a portrait gallery of the viceregal palace of
Chapultepec (later the Palacio Nacional). The measurements of
the picture match – within one or two centimeters — about two
dozen other half-length portraits of viceroys and statesmen
231
The ecorché is represented here by a 1800 drawing by
Felipe González (Museo de la Academia de San Carlos, Mexico).
See Bargellini and Fuentes 1989, figs. 51 and 113.
232
The cast cannot represent the famous ―Borghese Gladiator‖
as was suggested in passing in Angélica Velázquez Guadarrama,
―Pervivencias novohispanos y tránsito a la modernidad,‖ in
Gustavo Curiel, et al, Pintura y vida cotidiana en México
1650-1950 (Mexico City: Fomento Cultural Banamex and Consejo
Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1999), 193.
233
Though also about life-sized, at 93 x 74 cm, the work is
considerably smaller than the full-length portrait.
172
(dating from the sixteenth century on) that share the Palacio
Nacional provenance.
The series to which the half-length belongs features a
prominent biographical inscription running along the bottom
register of each canvas. Gálvez‘s vita reads:
El excelentísimo señor don Matías de Gálvez y
Gallardo, teniente general de los reales ejércitos
de su majestad, virrey gobernador, capitán general
de la Nueva España y presidente de la Real
Audiencia. Juró dichos cargos el 29 de abril de
1783.234
Because this work was destined for the Palacio Nacional
gallery, and commissioned before Gálvez‘s involvement with
the academy, no mention is made of his position as vice-
protector of the Academia de San Carlos.235
The engraved portrait of 1785 by Tomás Suria (pl. 65),
a colleague of Gil‘s from the academy in Madrid), which
234
The above transcription is taken from Bárbara Meyer and
Esther Ciancas, La pintura de retrato colonial, siglos XVI-
XVIII: Catálogo de la collección del Museo Nacional de
Historia (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e
Historia, 1994), cat. 100). ―His excellency Señor Don Matías
de Gálvez y Gallardo. Lieutenant General of His Majesty‘s
Royal Army, Viceroy Governor [and] Captain General of New
Spain and President of the Royal Tribunal [Audiencia]. Sworn
in to these posts 29 April 1783.‖
235
Provenance provided in Meyer and Ciancas, Catalogo, 70,
cat. 100.
173
appears as the frontispiece to the Solemnes exêquias del
Exmô. Señor D. Matías de Gálvez, supports the dating of
López‘s half-length of the viceroy to 1783-84.236 Suria‘s
print not only employs the likeness of the statesman (which
appears in reverse), but also transcribes the painting‘s
biographical inscription to the letter.
For the full-length portrait of the deceased viceroy,
López returned to his first likeness of Gálvez. The costume,
including the wig and black ribbon, are nearly identical.
Furthermore, López‘s means of describing the eyes, lips, and
nose remains wholly consistent with the earlier canvas. While
the artist has changed the disposition of the arms and hands
(a move called for by the full-length format), the facial
features have only been altered with subtle improvements that
accentuate the furrowed brow and prominent chin.
Though it looks nothing like the remaining likenesses
of Gálvez, another extant portrait of Matías de Gálvez,
bearing the signature of the painter Ramón Torres, presents
the statesman seated at a writing desk (Museo de América,
236
Signed and dated by Tomás Suria, Mexico City, 1785.
Published as the frontispiece in Solemnes exêquias del Exmô.
Señor D. Matías de Gálvez (Mexico City: Nueva Imprenta
Mexicana de Don F. de Zúñiga y Ontiveros, 1785).
174
Madrid).237 The viceroy‘s vita is inscribed on a vellum sheet
conveniently displayed next to the inkwell on the secretaire.
Its text, both concise and straightforward, reads as follows:
Exmo Sr. Matias de Gálvez. Presidente de la Real
Audiencia y Capitan General del Reino de
Guatemala. Virrey de Nueba España. Promulgador de
la paz con Inglaterra. Fundador y mantenedor de la
Academia de las Bellas Artes de la ciudad de
Mexico.238
The text closes with a date of 1783 and the inscription
―Ramon Torres pinxi.‖ The wording of the biographical
inscription, in particular the omission of a precise or
correct title of the academy and the lack of any ―royal‖
descriptor, provides convincing evidence that the picture was
completed before Gálvez‘s published announcement of the new
institution. This document publicized for the first time the
royal approval of the new art academy and specified that it
237
The dimensions of the Madrid portrait are 113 x 91 cm.
238
―His Excellency Señor Matías de Gálvez, president of the
Real Audiencia and Captain General of the Kingdom of
Guatemala, Viceroy of New Spain. Promulgator of the peace
with England. Founder and protector of the Academy of Fine
Arts of the city of Mexico.‖ The treaty with England was
signed in Paris in 1763. Other objects in the picture include
files labeled ―Court Correspondence‖ and ―Confidential
Correspondence,‖ while a scroll on the shelf above is
identified as the ―plano del Bosque de Chapultepec.‖
175
would be known ―con título de S. Carlos de Nueva España baxo
la Real inmediata protección de S. M.‖239 Without doubt, the
picture would certainly not have been painted after the
publication and subsequent distribution of the Academy‘s
Statutes in 1785.240
This picture poses a curious problem: it bears no
resemblance of the man known through at least three other
likenesses and yet was sent to Spain at some time after its
completion. If it were intended for family members of the
viceroy, it seems unlikely that they would have known him
directly. However, if the portrait was intended for the royal
collection, or perhaps some other governmental body, as a
historical record, it adequately serves the purpose. In
fact, if it were not for the inscription in Torres‘s canvas,
the identity of the sitter may have continued to elude
scholars to this day. The portrait is itself a ―generic‖ type
in the sense that there is no attempt to convey the physical
239
See Marley, 1984, Document III, n.p..
240
It may be hypothesized that the portrait was commissioned
with export to Spain in mind. Not merely because it has
resides in the Museo de Américas in Madrid, but also because
its composition is an unusual one for state portraits in New
Spain. The seated portrait subgenre, whose most famous
Mexican examples are those of Sor Juana Iñes de la Cruz, is
more suited to high-ranking officials and courtiers in
Madrid. It does not appear that Andrés López knew of the
picture when he set about painting either of his likenesses
of the viceroy Gálvez.
176
and psychological characteristics of the man, while his
achievements and offices are carefully enumerated through a
combination of text, attire and appurtenances. Evidently, his
support of the newly-forming academy was deemed important
enough to the anticipated audience to be included in the
vita. This seems to support the hypothesis that the picture
was intended for a governmental institution such as the
Council of Indies.
The lack of inscription in Andrés López‘s full-length
portrayal, on the other hand, suggests that viewers would
have had no difficulty in identifying the sitter, nor his
role in the founding of the institution. The demographic of
the intended audience of this picture of the viceroy was
decidedly different than that of any of the prior likenesses.
Considering its size, its narrative ambition, and its overt
references to draftsmanship, the most likely patron of the
canvas was the Academy itself and its trustees. This
conjecture is further supported by an investigation of a
group of portraits of the institution‘s other leading members
of the late 1780s and 1790s, a time that bore witness to the
ascendant star of painter Rafael Ximeno y Planes.
177
Gerónimo Antonio Gil: Portrait of an Academic Protagonist
The Portrait of Gerónimo Antonio Gil (pl. 52, Museo de
de San Carlos, Mexico), by the Valencian master Rafael Ximeno
y Planes, depicts a figure of determined and resolute
disposition. His attire, though fashionable and appropriate
for a man of his standing, is subdued in comparison to many
earlier portraits such as that of a Man with Timepieces (pl.
66, circa 1760, Museo Nacional del Virreinato, Tepotzotlán)
or Miguel Cabrera‘s portrait of the nobleman Don Juan Joaquín
Gutiérrez Altamirano Velasco (pl. 67, 1752, Brooklyn Museum,
New York). As in López‘s Portrait of Don Matías de Gálvez,
Ximeno y Planes strips the composition of all textual
biographical inscriptions and relies solely on iconography,
facial characteristics and setting to identify the sitter,
his profession and philosophy.
Other than Gil himself, the most prominent visual and
iconographical component in the picture is the white plaster
head behind Gil‘s proper right arm. Modeled on the head of
the elder of Laocöon‘s two sons (Vatican Museums, Rome), the
cast serves as a visual foil for that of the sitter. Its
leftward incline and its yielding, moribund expression
provide an effective counterpoint to the bullish
178
determination of Gil‘s countenance. The plaster head also
performs a narrative function, because when he arrived at the
Casa de Moneda in 1778, Gil had brought from Madrid his
rather modest collection of marble and plaster busts, along
with many drawings and copies. The busts were essential to
his didactic philosophy of drawing after the antique.241 That
the Laocöon was of particular interest to Gil is held up by
his execution of a commemorative medal depicting the same
subject.242
Resting under the heavy hexagonal stamping (or casting)
die in the subject‘s proper right hand is a leather-bound
volume identified along the spine as the Statutes of the
academy. It is not by chance that the two objects are
positioned in such a manner. The statutes codified the
academy‘s mission, its organization, and its purpose. Coin-
making and engraving were the staple skills of the old Real
Casa de Moneda school, the forerunner of the Academy of San
Carlos; Gil‘s was among the most significant hands in the
development of both arts at the new institution. Between the
thumb and forefinger of the sitter‘s other hand is a gold
241
There are many extant drawings after antique models in the
Academy‘s collection, among them Rafael Ximeno y Planes‘s
pencil study of the head of the Dying Alexander (pl. 68,
circa 1799).
242
Katzew 2004, 39.
179
medal, the final product of the instruments surrounding it:
the casting die, the two burins lying just behind it, and the
stamping press at the right of the composition.
Gil was the main producer of the continental neo-
Classical style at the academy in Mexico City. Evidence of
this fact (beyond the inclusion of the Laocöon head in his
portrait) lies in his coin designs, his design for decorative
and commemorative plates, and especially his interest in the
anatomical treatise of Gérard Audran. As its title suggests,
Audran‘s work, originally published in Paris and popular at
the Bourbon court in Madrid, catalogues in both text and
illustrations the ideals of human anatomy. Gil published his
Spanish translation of the work in Madrid in 1780. Gil‘s
interest in human anatomical proportion is additionally
reflected in examples in the collection he brought with him
from Spain, which included studies by French draughtsman
Gustave Debrie.243 Also figuring prominently in his collection
243
See Katzew 2004, 38-40. Also included in the collection
were publications of figures by both Poussin and Salvatore
Rosa, among others. A list of other copies, publications and
engravings in his collection reads like a survey of the canon
of western art history from the Antique to the Renaissance
through the end of the seventeenth century: works include
those by Vitruvius, Leonardo, Vasari, Palomino, Carducho,
Goya (prints after Velázquez), Luca Jordano, Rubens, Veronese
and Titian and Mengs. Also among his pictures were several
portraits from the academy of San Fernando in Madrid.
180
were copies after such Spanish masters as Murillo, Ribera,
Zurbarán, Velázquez and Morales. Thus, not only did Gil bring
with him a neo-classical sensibility reinforced by visual and
textual material, he also brought a distinct taste for the
great masters of Spain‘s Golden Age.
Furthermore, Gil consolidated his position on artistic
reform in New Spain (with demonstrable support from the court
in Madrid and the viceroy in Mexico) by filling faculty
positions as rapidly as was possible with masters associated
with the Spanish academies in Madrid and Valencia. Many of
these artists brought collections of books, engravings,
copies and drawings from their studios in Spain. Gil‘s plans
for the reform of artistic trends in New Spain was clearly
founded upon a neo-classical academicism and a reverence for
what was thought of as the finest hour of Spanish painting.
The vast majority of the faculty members that Gil installed
upon assuming his directorship of the academy were likewise
sympathetic to this mission of reform. It was no coincidence,
then, that many of those instructors replaced were creole
artists. Therefore, while the formation of the Academy of San
Carlos represents a significant moment in the history of art
in Mexico, it cannot be interpreted as a response to, or an
181
encouragement of, the aspirations for independence in creole
society.244
Ximeno y Plánes‘s Portrait of Manuel Tolsá
The Valencian-born sculptor and architect Manuel Tolsá
(pl. 59) was named director of sculpture in 1790, and arrived
in Mexico the following year. Tolsá‘s arrival coincided with
the departure from the academic ranks of master painter,
Andrés López.245 This coincidence points to an emerging
overall shift in the faculty demographic at the Academy, from
criollo to Peninsular. Tolsá, who was born in Enguera in
1757, studied at both the academies of San Carlos in Valencia
and San Fernando in Madrid. He was appointed to the faculty
at the academy in Madrid, taking the title of ―académico de
mérito,‖ in 1789, and later he was named pintor de cámara to
king Charles IV.246 It may be argued that Tolsá, with his
mastery of both sculpture and architecture, was in a unique
position to transform both the academy in Mexico City and the
244
Moreno 1978, 430. The author writes that the academic
movement served to encourage the desire for independence in
Mexico ―alentar el deseo de independencia en México.‖
245
López nevertheless continued to obtain commissions (for
devotional pictures, in most part) for the next two decades.
His last known painting bears an inscribed date of 1811.
246
T. A. Brown 1970, 150.
182
physical appearance of the colonial capital itself. Indeed,
Tolsá had an almost immediate impact on the both. The
collection of plaster casts he brought from Spain was
immediately employed in the training of drawing and for a
visitors‘ gallery, a sign of a ―complete academy.‖247 Among
his major projects of the 1790s were the bronze equestrian
likeness of Charles IV (originally located in the Plaza
Mayor), the baldacchino in the cathedral in Puebla, the high
altar of La Profesa in Mexico City, and the Palace of
Mining.248 He collaborated with fellow academician Rafael
Ximeno y Planes on the architectural design and fresco
decoration of the cupola of the Metropolitan cathedral.249
Marked not merely by an adherence to the academic ideals of
classical form and structure, Tolsá‘s sculpture – especially
the monumental Charles IV on horseback – recall compositions
prevalent during the Italian Renaissance.250 Ximeno‘s portrait
of Tolsá presents the artist seated, with a ceramic head of
Laocöon under his left elbow and a sculptor‘s tool in his
247
Carillo y Gariel 1939, 26-28; and T. A. Brown 1970, 151.
248
T. A. Brown 1970, 162.
249
Moreno 1978, 432.
250
For more on the early proponents of Neoclassicism in
Mexico, see Comunidad Valenciana, Tolsá, Gimeno, Fabregat:
trayectoria artística en Españ
a, siglo XVIII. (Valencia:
Generalitat, Comissió per al Ve Centenari del Descobriment
d'America, 1989).
183
right hand. Tolsá is here identified as sculptor, rather than
architect. Thus, the painting emphasizes his role as director
of sculpture at the Academy of San Carlos. The composition,
palette and painterly style are in keeping with trends on the
rise in Madrid. Francisco Bayeu y Subías (1734 – 1795) and
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746 – 1828) were among
the influential figures at the Academy of San Fernando. Juan
de Sáenz‘s Portrait of Fernando de Musitu Zalvide (pl. 69,
1795, Denver Art Museum) indicates how quickly this style
took hold at the academy in Mexico City.
Two Viceregal Exemplars of the New Taste
The allegorical portraits of two late eighteenth-
century viceroys, both painted around 1800, also fit into
this new model of statesman as protector of the arts (pl. 70,
71, Banco Nacional de Mexico). The likenesses appear to rely
on the facial features depicted in the respective half-length
state portraits from the Palacio Nacional series (Museo
Nacional de Historia, Castillo de Chapultepec, Mexico). The
first of this allegorical pair, of Juan Vicente de Güemes
Pacheco y Padilla, Count of Revillagigedo II, who governed
New Spain from 1789 until 1794, was likely painted sometime
184
very shortly after viceroy‘s tenure.251 The other, of viceroy
Miguel José de Azanza, who ran the colony from 1798 until
1800, was probably executed during the sitter‘s tour of duty
in Mexico. Miguel de la Grua Talamanca y Branciforte, the
Marques de Branciforte, acted as viceroy in the years between
the Revillagigedo and Azanza administrations.
The dimensions of the two pictures are sufficiently
close to suggest that they were intended to be hung together
as a pair.252 At just over 50cm in height, they are unusual
for both their small scale and ambitious allegorical
programs. Furthermore, the facial features and depictions of
attire and other details suggest that the same author
executed both works. In the likeness of Revillagigedo, the
viceroy is surrounded by three classical allegorical figures.
On the left is Athena, wearing a plumed battle helmet, a blue
breastplate with silver rocaille, leather-strapped sandals
and a spear. Representative of wisdom, military prowess and
251
For a complete biography of the count, see James Manfred
Manfredini, The Political Role of the Count of Revillagigedo,
Viceroy of New Spain 1789-1794, (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University, 1949).
252
The portrait of Revillagigedo measures 52 x 41cm while
that of Azanza measures 53 x 41cm. They could be part of a
larger group of allegorical portraits, though no others are
extant to my knowledge.
185
good government, the goddess guides the statesman toward
victory.
Behind Revillagigedo is the twin-faced figure of Janus.
The female face of peace and prosperity shines on the
Americas, represented here by a kneeling native woman and a
crowned eagle clutching a cactus. In 1783, Spain and Great
Britain ended four years of war with the signing of the
Treaty of Versailles. The face of war, meanwhile, turns out
to sea past the gunship in the bay, symbolizing that with the
advent of the new viceroy has come a new peace for the people
of New Spain. The frigate likely refers to Revillagigedo‘s
renewed campaigns of exploration along the northwest coast of
British Columbia and Alaska, in order to stem the Russian
advances into the territory.253
Finally, Justice attends to the viceroy from the right,
holding the scales of her virtue in her left hand while the
fasces rest against her right leg. It must be no coincidence
that directly behind her head hovers the royal arms of Spain
(Castile and Leon). The viceroy himself is a picture of
studied elegance. He is dressed fashionably in a three-
253
Díaz-Trechuelo Spinola, María Lourdes, ―El virrey don Juan
Vicente de Güemes Pacheco, segundo conde de Revillagigedo,‖
in Los virreyes de Nueva España en el reinado de Carlos IV,
vol. 1, ed. by José Antonio Calderón Quijano, Seville, 1972,
285ff.
186
quarter length topcoat, adorned with the emblems of his noble
position: a blue and silver sash (which echoes Athena‘s
breastplate), and embroidered emblems his two important
orders of knighthood. Revillagigedo was made a knight of the
Order of Calatrava in 1784, while serving as teniente general
del ejército and then, in 1792 while viceroy, was named to
the Order of Carlos III.254 His proper left hand rests firmly
on his staff of office, atop which his three-corner hat is
jauntily resting. At his feet are material allusions to his
patronage of the visual arts: a palette loaded with oil
colors, a mahlstick, paint brushes, a plaster head in
classicizing style, a scroll of paper, a compass and a sheet
of geometrical drawings.
Several similar iconographical details are included in
the portrait of Miguel José de Azanza, which maintains an
equally complex conceit. In the foreground one finds a
palette, brushes and oils, a sketch on paper, a compass, and
an Ionic capital. Meanwhile, the hand of a female Justice
figure physically guides the viceroy through his daily
paperwork. Overhead, a winged angel blasts the trumpet of
Fame, while Athena advances with spear, plumed and damascened
helmet, and aegis-decorated shield. Azanza holds his quill
254
Díaz-Trechuelo Spinola, 94.
187
parallel to that of Athena‘s spear, suggesting that his aims
in the administration of New Spain are backed by divine
justice and providence, and worthy of the enduring virtue of
everlasting fame.
The viceroy‘s labors are arduous, however, as suggested
by the writhing nude figure of Hercules seen through parted
drapery in the background. The scattered papers, overturned
inkwell, and leather-bound volume provide further parallels
to the achievements of the viceroy. This odd background scene
comes across as a mixed metaphor: while the mythic hero
battles the many-headed Hydra, he is shown in a prone pose
reminiscent of baroque depictions of Prometheus. High above
the scene in the background is a hazy depiction of what
appears to be the viceregal palace of Chapultepec, to which
the viceroy made important additions during his regency.255
The two pictures were clearly executed by the same
artist. The figure of Athena Nike appears in both, wearing an
exceedingly similar blue and silver breastplate over a
flowing white tunic. Although she appears more battle-ready
in the Azanza portrait, the facial type is consistent in both
255
Cite bio from Diaz-Trechuelo Spinola. Azanza commissioned
a gunpowder storage facility from the architect Antonio
Rodríguez Velázquez on the grounds of the Chapultepec
viceregal palace; see Díaz-Trechuelo, 6.
188
depictions: she is characterized by a rounded jawline, a
slightly down-turned nose, and ears that are all but obscured
by long, wavy hair. The figures of Justice in both works are
also akin in both physiognomy and attire. Both exhibit stout
but supple arms, oval faces and a classicizing brow-line. The
profile of the nose is also idealized in the manner of
antique statuary. The artist depicts the figures with heavy-
lidded eyes, accentuated by highlighted cheekbones.
Furthermore, the wispy tresses of both figures‘ hairstyles
are held in place by a thin crimson fillet (also common in
Greco-roman sculpture). While the same hand may be identified
in both pictures, their attribution to a known author remains
elusive. The inclusion of overt references to drawing,
painting and sculpture in the foreground of both paintings,
and nudes in the background, further suggests a connection
between the paintings and the Academy of San Carlos.
The Primacy of Draftsmanship
The life-size statues that figure prominently in both
Calleja‘s Portrait of José de Carvajal y Lancaster and
López‘s Matías de Gálvez as Viceprotector of the Academy
allude to the fundamental place occupied by classical
189
antiquities (or, in this case, copies thereafter) in the
academy. Primarily, they were seen as tools for the
instruction of draftsmanship. Calleja further emphasizes
drawing as the foundation of architecture by including a
design for a capital that unfurls just beneath Carvajal‘s
open hand. Indeed, one of the motivations behind the
founding of the academy in Madrid was the perceived decline
of drawing during the later seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries.256 In his Apertura solemne published in 1752,
Carvajal made special mention of the universal importance of
drawing as a ―utility for an entire kingdom‖ that served in
the ―defense of the Republic.‖257
Historically, drawing was the founding principle of
nearly all art academies throughout Europe. Murillo, for
example, whose efforts to start an academy in Seville were
among the earliest in Spain, included in his self-portrait of
1670-72 (London, National Gallery) clear allusions to the
fundamental role of draftsmanship in the art of painting.
Furthermore, according to its Reglamento interior, the new
academy of San Fernando‘s directors considered original
256
José María de Azcárate Ristori, ―Génesis y evolución de la
Real Academia en el periodo 1744-1844,‖ in Azcárate 1991,
XIX.
257
Ibid., XIX. The Apertura solemne was published on the
occasion of the Academy‘s foundation in 1752.
190
drawings to be of the greatest importance for didactic
purposes, and thus listed this medium as the highest priority
for acquisition (followed in order by copies, prints, medals
and other sculpture).258
Considering the artistic climate in Europe in the mid-
eighteenth century, this esteemed position of drawing is not
surprising. In Spain, many blamed a loss of drawing
proficiency during the second half of the seventeenth century
on what they perceived as a corruption of the arts in
general. As Anton Rafael Mengs wrote, ―the fine arts, being
liberal arts, are bound by fixed rules founded in reason.‖259
These ―fixed rules,‖ as Mengs implied in his letter, were at
the foundation of draftsmanship, which was in turn the basis
for any painting characterized by the new standards of taste.
258
Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (Madrid),
Estatutos y Reglamento de la Real Academia de Nobles Artes de
San Fernando (Madrid, 1865).
259
José Nicolás Azara, Obras de Mengs (Madrid, 1780), 391-
393. Translated in Azcue Brea, Leticia, ―Protagonismo de los
escultores Olivieri y Castro en los inicios de la Real
Academia de Nobless Artes de San Fernando,‖ Academia 75
(1992), 367-88.
191
Conclusions
In both Spain and her transatlantic colony, painting
was now to adhere officially to the laws of ―good‖
draftsmanship. The painterly, bravura (often misleadingly
called ―mannered‖) style of the later seventeenth century,
best represented on the peninsula by such artists as Juan
Valdés Leal, Claudio Coello and Francisco Rizi, and in New
Spain by Cristóbal de Villalpando, José Juárez and Juan
Rodríguez Juárez, was systematically replaced by the
structured academicism that had won favor at the Bourbon
court in Madrid. In Mexico, as in Spain, it was the academy
that was charged with the promotion and preservation of the
new order; the culmination of this mandate was the complete
overhaul of the Academy of San Carlos‘s faculty shortly after
its founding.260 During this time, Mexican painters such as
Andrés López were replaced by instructors from peninsular
Spain, especially products of the royal academies.261 From
about 1786 until 1791, such artists as Francisco Clapera, who
260
See Moreno 1978, 429-433.
261
Apart from Rafael Ximeno y Planes, other academicians
imported from Spain included Antonio González Velázquez,
Joaquín Fabregat, Andrés Gines de Aguirre, and Manuel Tolsá.
Originally, Tolsá‘s place had been offered to Manuel Arias,
but he died before making the journey to New Spain.
192
had studied at the Academy of San Fernando, began arriving in
Mexico City.262 It is clear from the letters between Gil and
his Peninsular contacts that this had always been the
intention of the academy‘s patrons. Without copies of great
works of art, and without the right drawings instructors, Gil
complained that the students would develop bad habits that
would be hard to break.263
Scholars in the past have suggested that the burgeoning
academic movement in Mexico provided evidence of nationalism
in its nascent, even proto-revolutionary stages.264 The
portraits of those most closely associated with the Academy
of San Carlos, however, contradict this interpretation. In
fact, portraiture during the final decades of the eighteenth
century, especially those examples closely associated with
262
For Clapera, whose career and oeuvre in New Spain remain
something of a mystery, see Clara Bargellini, ―Dos pinturas
de Francisco Clapera,‖ Anales del Instituto de
Investigaciones Estéticas 65 (1994), 159-178. A set of 16
casta paintings is on view at the Denver Art Museum
(Frederick and Jan Mayer Collection), and one devotional
picture also resides in the Mayer Collection in Denver.
263
From an undated document of about 1790, transcribed in
Báez Macías, 84-85 (AAASC doc. 910). The relevant passage
reads: ―por ser la principal parte que comprehenda todas ser
más difícil de aprender, y en que contrído un mal hábito no
fácil de quitar, es el dibujo…‖
264
Moreno 1978, 430. The author states that, following
centuries of ―dependence‖ on baroque stylistic traditions,
the ―principally intellectual‖ neo-classical movement
possibly served to ―alentar el deseo de independencia en
México.‖
193
the academy, exhibited a dramatic stylistic and iconographic
shift towards continental European trends and ―la Madre
patria.‖
194
CONCLUSIONS
This dissertation has taken the approach of using
several case studies of important ―moments‖ in the artistic
history of New Spain to shed light on the character of the
portrait‘s development from the early seventeenth to the late
eighteenth centuries. Among the first conclusions to be drawn
is that the portrait in New Spain did not develop the same
way as it did in Spain, France, England, or elsewhere in
Europe. Paradoxically, European models nevertheless were
essential to the development of the genre in Spain‘s American
dominions. The differences between the European and American
(in this case, Mexican) traditions of portraiture have
contributed to the genre‘s marginalization and misconception
among scholars and lay people alike. In a sense, portraiture
in New Spain was anti-progressive: from the Spanish conquest
until about 1700, the genre is characterized by a remarkable
constancy of composition, style and iconography. With few
exceptions, patronage was limited to viceroys, bishops, or
Peninsular, male elites. Easily overlooked but equally
important was that the intended audience of these works of
art was also limited to viceroys, bishops, and Peninsular
195
elites because the pictures themselves were located in the
most private spaces of church and government buildings.
The first case study discussed here revolves around the
decoration of the meeting hall of the cathedral chapter in
Mexico City. The Basque artist-theorist Baltasar Echave Orio
appears to have executed the earliest portraits in this
endeavor. However, by 1609, Alonso López de Herrera had
arrived in New Spain with his protector, the newly-appointed
archbishop, Fray García Guerra. García Guerra was an
exceptional, if long-ignored, patron of the arts; his trans-
Atlantic entourage in 1608 also included the great literary
figure Mateo Alemán, who penned his last work, Sucesos de
frai García Guerra, arzobispo de México, upon his patron‘s
death in 1613.265 The archbishop‘s political and intellectual
mentor was Francisco Gómez de Sandoval y Rojas, Duke of
Lerma, Philip III‘s favorite. Upon their arrival in Mexico
City, one of López de Herrera‘s first responsibilities was to
execute the magnificent, full-length portrait of his patron
that resides in the Museo Nacional del Virreinato
(Tepotzotlán). The importation of a mature, highly skilled
265
Mateo Aléman, Sucesos de D. Frai Garcia Gera, arçobispo de
México (Mexico: Viuda de Pedro Balli, 1613). For a brief
discussion, see José María Micó, ―Introducción,‖ in Mateo
Alemán, Guzmán de Alfarache I 8th ed. (Madrid: Cátedra ,
Letras Hispánicas, 2009), 24.
196
artist familiar with Spanish court taste, was a calculated
effort to strengthen the Spanish character of artistic
developments in Mexico. Often dismissed as a talented but
derivative provincial artist, López de Herrera was in reality
the product of a Valladolid court that hosted important
Italian, Flemish and Spanish painters during a period (1601-
06) in which portrait commissions were of particular
importance to the kind and his favorite, Lerma. Thus, López
de Herrera acted as an agent of artistic reform in his duties
as painter to the archbishop-viceroy of New Spain.
The importation of an influential artist, however, does
not adequately account for the remarkable consistency of the
portrait tradition in New Spain. From about 1600, well into
the eighteenth century, the majority of painted portraits in
New Spain depict a male sitter, either half- or full-length,
in garb appropriate to his office, accompanied by a swag of
drapery, his family‘s heraldry, and a biographical
inscription. Many of these portraits formed part of large
series, such as those for the viceregal palace, or the
chapter halls of Mexico and Puebla. While the viceroy series
ended with Mexican independence, the series of archbishops
continue to the present day. The remarkable uniformity of
composition and appearance of the corporate or state portrait
197
during this period owed much to the necessity of maintaining
the overall character of the series. While individual merits
and achievements are referenced in such likenesses, the
office and its legitimacy was the overarching theme of such
portrait galleries. The political intricacies of the day, in
particular the rivalry between the offices of viceroy and
archbishop, demanded that the series present a unified front
and the appearance of long-established legitimacy. The
political landscape of the viceroyalty was intentionally
unstable: powerful prelates and the monastic orders often
competed with the king‘s surrogate for political primacy. In
this way, the Spanish crown could ostensibly maintain control
over a vast, wealthy, and far-off dominion. Portraiture
served to legitimize the authority of those vying for the
reins of command.
While political trouble persisted for the duration of
the viceroyalty, and the series of viceroys and bishops
continued apace through the eighteenth century, there was a
noticeable shift in artistic taste with the advent of the
Bourbon dynasty in 1700. The period from 1700 to about 1720
was seminal for the development of the painted portrait in
New Spain. Social, political, and economic changes played
significant roles in what amounted to a great proliferation
198
of portrait commissions at this time. New categories suddenly
abounded; apart from the phenomenon of the monjas coronadas,
there were secular female portraits, those of wealthy criollo
merchants, their families, children, and even their dogs.
Thus began the age of the society portrait in New Spain.
Generations of artists, from the pre-eminent Juan Rodríguez
Juárez and Miguel Cabrera to the lower ranks of unidentified
masters, met the increasing demand for such pictures. To
varying degrees, the majority of these domestic portraits
serve to highlight the virtue, wealth and status of the
family.
The final discussion of this study focuses on the role
of portraiture and its practitioners in the rise of the
Academy of San Carlos. Like Alonso López de Herrera at the
outset of the seventeenth century, Peninsular academicians
like Gerónimo Antonio Gil and Rafael Ximeno y Planes were
imported to New Spain to promulgate an official artistic
taste. The state-sponsored curriculum promoted draftsmanship
and academic concepts in keeping with accepted trends at the
Spanish court. In this case, the academy was both a vehicle
for Enlightenment ideals and a means of greater control over
a colony increasingly comfortable with its own identity. It
is perhaps a historical irony that at no point since López de
199
Herrera had portraiture in Mexico hewn more closely to
Spanish models than on the eve of its independence.
Before the great boom in portrait production around
1720, portrait commissions were limited to a fairly small
segment of the elite. Politically minded patrons like Juan de
Palafox or García Guerra had a demonstrable grasp of the
portrait‘s political utility. Once the formula of state
portraiture was established in New Spain, it remained fairly
uniform because of the inherent demands of such patrons. The
first portrait commissions were for series of statesmen;
later depictions needed to comply with and consolidate this
corporate template. In this way, portraiture in New Spain
developed differently than it had in England, France or the
Netherlands because its tradition was so firmly rooted in the
repetitive series of viceroys and prelates. This paradigm
helps to explain why an artist as innovative as Villalpando
would largely stay within the prescribed boundaries of
artistic decorum in his portraits, and also why a subgenre
like equestrian portraiture, which was so important in
Europe, never became widespread in seventeenth-century Latin
America. Portraiture in the viceroyalties, like the court
culture of its main government seats in Mexico City and Lima,
was inherently conservative, concerned as it was with the
200
shaky balance of power that defined colonial politics and
society.
So instead of developing along the art-historical arc
that characterizes many parts of Europe, portraiture in New
Spain followed a different course. For this, and many other
reasons, the genre of portrait-painting has long been
neglected in art-historical scholarship. I would argue that
the significance of the portrait in the history and culture
of Spanish America, and the importance of Spain‘s
contribution to its development, should no longer be
overlooked.
201
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Portrature in New Spain 1600-1800

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Portraiture in New Spain, 1600-1800:

Painters, Patrons and Politics

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of

Institute of Fine Arts

New York University

All rights reserved

INFORMATION TO ALL USERS

All Rights Reserved, 2011

My first debt of gratitude is to Professor Jonathan

Brown for his guidance, wisdom, and steady encouragement over

the years. As a teacher, scholar, and mentor, he is a true

role model. I would also like to thank Professor Edward J.

Sullivan, whose intellectual generosity and boundless

paths of inquiry and discovery. I will be forever grateful to

have had teachers like these.

I wish to thank the staff of the academic office at the

Institute of Fine Arts, especially Keith Kelly and Hope

Spence. Over the years, the following have provided all

manner of academic, personal and professional guidance: Dr.

Mariët Westermann, Professor Egbert-Haverkamp Begemann,

Professor Alexander Nagel, Professor Robert Lubar, and the

late Professors Robert Rosenblum and Donald Posner. For their

financial support, I would like to thank the Andrew W. Mellon

Foundation, the Council of Friends at the IFA, and the Samuel

H. Kress Foundation for a generous travel grant. A very

special thank you goes to Niria Leyva-Gutiérrez, Dr. Sofía

taught me and whose friendship sustained me.

The following people have provided crucial assistance

and support: Jenni Rodda, Dr. Marcus Burke, Professor Clara

Bargellini, Claire Hills-Nova, Dr. Andaleeb Badiee Banta, the

late Doro Belz, Daniel Dennehy, Dra. Patricia Díaz Cayeros,

Dr. Lisa Duffy-Zeballos, Dr. John Garton, Pamela Huckins, Dr.

Jeffrey Schrader, Dr. Julie Shean, Brenda Phifer Shrobe, Hope

Spence, and Dr. Adriaan E. Waiboer. Thanks also to the

library staff of the Hispanic Society of America, the Latin

American Reading Room at the Library of Congress, the Frick

Art Reference Library and the interlibrary loan staffs at

Bobst Library and the Denver Public Library.

While completing this dissertation, I have been blessed

to call Colorado home. Dr. Donna Pierce is first and foremost

among the many people in Denver to whom I owe my deepest

gratitude. Donna, who sets the benchmark for curatorship of

Spanish Colonial art, has lent her guidance, editorial

acumen, and keen insight to many projects I have undertaken

while resident at the Denver Art Museum, including this

dissertation. The Mayer fellowship that allowed me to

complete my dissertation would not have been possible without

will be forever grateful to Donna and the Mayers. Also in

Denver, thanks to the Alianza de las Artes Américanas,

Kristin Bonk, Ann Daley, Piper Mitchell, Kim Nochi, Ron

Otsuka, Carl Patterson, Valery Taylor Brown, Anne W. Tennant,

Patricia Tomlinson, Julie Wilson, and Margaret Young-Sánchez.

I wish to thank my grandparents, who instilled in their

children and grandchildren a profound appreciation for the

importance of education and the arts. Hilary and David

Santoni, Christopher and Leslie Brown, and Rebecca Brown each

lent immeasurable support during this undertaking. Finally, I

owe my most profound thanks to my parents, Lesley and Stephen

Brown; their love, generosity and support have known no

bounds. It is to them and to Danielle, my love and

inspiration, that I dedicate this dissertation.

This dissertation charts some of the most significant

events for the development of portrait-painting in New Spain