it 
 
 -4 
 
Mexican Painting 
 
 AND Painters 
 
 -A Brief Sketch of the Development 
 
 of the 
 
 Spanish School of Painting in Mexico 
 
 By ROBERT H. LAMBORN, Ph. D. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 1891 
 
LIMITED EDITION OF 
 FIVE HUNDRED COPIES 
 PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR. 
 
 No ^A. 
 
 % 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 erudite statesman, Senor Don Matias Romero, the present Mexican 
 Minister at Washington— to all of whom I am indebted for valuable 
 suggestions — have encouraged me in the belief that the assemblage 
 merits the permanency of print. The support of the last-named gentle- 
 man gives weight to my impression that not fewer than twenty-five 
 thousand pictures were painted in the Vice-Royalty during the colonial 
 period, and as I compare in my mind the canvases and panels I exam- 
 ined in Mexico with thousands which crowd the galleries of Italy, I 
 am persuaded that students of history will in due season recognize the 
 fact that the repositories of our neighboring republic contain ample 
 material for a treatise which would be honored in the annals of art, 
 and form a memorable chapter in the record of human culture. 
 
 Washington, D. C, May ist, 1891. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 JUANA Inez de La Cruz. 
 
 Phototype of an old Mexican copy in oil of a portrait painted by 
 herself— Brief outline of the life of the earliest Mexican 
 poetess 
 
 Santa Rosa De Lima. 
 
 Phototype of an old oil painting on copper by a Mexican artist- 
 Biographical notice of the only born American who has been 
 canonized 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 The literature of America, England, France, and Germany singu- 
 larly deficient in information regarding the Mexican Branch 
 of the Spanish School of Art— Injustice to an important de- 
 partment of human culture— Why the United States will 
 excel in collections illustrating the progress of the race ... 21 
 
 (7) 
 
8 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 European pictures by the great masters furnish Mexican 
 artists with the best models. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Mexico's wealth and her vast ecclesiastical establishments foster 
 domestic art — The transition from brilliant native featherwork 
 to painting in oil colors — Many of the best Mexican pictures 
 sold in Europe during the revolutionary period — The "En- 
 tombment by Titian," at Tzintzuntzan, with an engraving 
 from a pencil sketch by F. E. Church 25 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The SKILL OF pre-Columbian artists facilitates the intro- 
 duction OF European methods. 
 
 Capacity of the aboriginal peoples of the Mexican table-land to 
 model in clay ; to execute stone statues, feather mosaics, 
 drawings and illuminations on prepared skins, and to work in 
 gold, silver, copper, and precious stones — Ancient Aztec sacred 
 works of art used in the service of the new faith ..... 33 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The dawn of the fine arts in New Spain. 
 
 The European authorities discourage colonial art — Description of 
 the celebrated picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe, which is 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 9 
 
 PAGE 
 
 shown by Cabrera to be a supernatural work — Some Spanish 
 painters who emigrated to Mexico in the Sixteenth Century — 
 Rodrigo de Cifuentes, Andres de Concha 38 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Contemporary painters and painting in English and Spanish 
 America and in Spain. 
 
 Early Spanish art modified by Italian and Flemish masters — 
 Influence of the Escorial — Velazquez, Rubens, Echave, and 
 Arteaga contemporaries — Murillo and Juarez — Cabrera and 
 Mengs — Copley and West contemporaries of Ibarra and Ca- 
 brera — Alston, Cole, and Vanderlyn appear as the Mexican 
 school of colonial art expires — The Mexican National Academy 
 of Fine Arts — The statue of Charles IV. — Portraits of the 
 Mexican Viceroys and Archbishops 43 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The most distinguished colonial painters and their best- 
 known pictures. 
 
 Balthasar Echave (or Chaves) el Viejo, "La Sumaya;" Sebas- 
 tian Arteaga, Telpochtepico, Luis Juarez (or Xuarez), Diego 
 Bongraf, Nicolas Becera, Balthasar de Echave (or Chaves) 
 
lO 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 el Mozo, Jose Juarez (or Xuarez), J. Sanches Salmeron, Pedro 
 Ramirez, M. Luna, Juan Correa, Juan Rodrigues Juarez (or 
 Xuarez), Nicolas Rodriguez Juarez (or Xuarez), Cristobal Vil- 
 lalpando, Antonio Torres, Jose Torres, Don Miguel de Men- 
 doza, El Hermano Manuel Jesuito, Jose Ibarra, Francisco 
 Martinez, Miguel Cabrera, Jose Antonio Vallejo, Mariano Vas- 
 quez, Jose Alcibar, Patricio Morlet, Francisco Leon, Nicolas 
 Enriques, Jose Paez, Don Francisco Gomez de Valencia, An- 
 dres Lopez, Joseph Joaquin Magon, Manuel Caro, Fr. Miguel 
 de Herrera, Juan Tinoco, Joaquin Esquivel, Antonio Eche- 
 varria, Juan de Dios Cerda, Rafael Jimeno, Eduardo Tres- 
 guerras 49 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 A LIST OF ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE MEXICAN PAINTERS 
 BELONGING TO THE SIXTEENTH, SEVENTEENTH, AND EIGHT- 
 EENTH CENTURIES, WITH DATES OBSERVED ON THEIR PICT- 
 URES 67 
 
 a catalogue of seventy-seven paintings illustrating the 
 Mexican branch of the Spanish school of art. 
 
 A collection made in 1881 and 1883 in Mexico, and now deposited 
 with the Pennsylvania Museum at Memorial Hall, Philadelphia, 71 
 
K U N ST; 
 
 Phototype. 
 
JUANA Inez de la Cruz, whose portrait is here given, 
 was an early Mexican artist and the earliest Mexican poetess. 
 This phototype is from an untouched photograph of an old 
 life-size copy in oil of the original portrait painted by her- 
 self, which copy I purchased in Puebla de los Angeles in 
 1883, and have placed in my collection, illustrating the colo- 
 nial art of Mexico, in Memorial Hall, Philadelphia. 
 
 She was born in 165 1 in the town of Nepantla, near 
 the National Capital, and was without doubt the most re- 
 markable woman that Mexico has produced. At a very 
 early age her precocious intellect led to her establishment at 
 the vice-regal court as a lady in waiting. It is said a love 
 affair caused her to assume the habit of the Carmelites, and 
 for many years she lived as a nun in the convents of San 
 Jose and San Geronimo, chiefly engaged in writing Spanish 
 and Latin poems, and pursuing studies in science and poetic 
 literature. In her forty-second year, and about two years be- 
 fore her death, she was persuaded by her ecclesiastical ad- 
 visers to abandon secular studies and devote herself to acts 
 of severe penance. To this end she sold her library of more 
 than four thousand volumes, with geographical maps and 
 scientific and musical instruments. 
 
 Berestain records among her works : a quarto published in 
 Mexico in 168 1, treating of the ceremonial entry of the Viceroy 
 
 (13) 
 
14 INEZ DE LA CRUZ. 
 
 Paredes ; "Judgment on a Sermon," a quarto printed in Puebla 
 in 1690, which, it is asserted, shows a skill in theological 
 discussion not surpassed by any contemporaneous writer; 
 "Sacred and Secular Poems," in two quarto volumes, of 
 which six editions were published in Spain before 1700. 
 Several productions are mentioned as still in manuscript; 
 one is a treatise on music, two are comedies, and three re- 
 ligious dramas. A translation of the inscription beneath the 
 portrait is given in the catalogue of pictures. 
 
Santa Rosa de Lima is the only born American canonized 
 saint. This phototype is from a picture painted in oil on a 
 plate of hammered copper thirteen and one-half inches high 
 by twelve and one-half inches wide, purchased in the city of 
 Mexico in 1883, and now in Memorial Hall, Philadelphia. The 
 former owner assured me that it once adorned the walls of 
 the Convent of Santa Catalina de Sena. The signature in 
 gilt scrip is yet undeciphered ; it was injured probably in 
 rending the plate from its framing during some revolutionary 
 outbreak. 
 
 Santa Rosa was born in the capital of Peru in 1586. At an 
 early age she became an admirer and follower of the austere 
 Saint Catharine of Siena, and gave herself up unreservedly 
 to acts of penance and charity. Among her self-imposed 
 tasks, says Baring-Gould, was that of curing an acquaintance 
 of the habit of smoking, which she accomplished by consecrat- 
 ing thereunto five days of fervent prayer. He also relates that 
 while she walked among the bitter herbs and wooden crosses 
 with which she had planted her garden, she one day ex- 
 claimed, " O, all ye green things of the earth, bless ye the 
 Lord ! " Suddenly the neighboring trees began to shiver and 
 clash their leaves together, and the stately poplars bowed 
 their heads and reverently bent them until they touched the 
 ground. 
 
 (17) 
 
i8 
 
 SANTA ROSA DE LIMA. 
 
 A graceful story is also preserved by the same author, show- 
 ing the warm sympathy that had grown up between her and 
 the feral inhabitants of the neighboring groves. One spring a 
 little bird built its nest in a mimosa tree near the cottage where 
 the saint dwelt. Passing the tree during a morning walk she 
 was greeted by a joyous song so clear and sweet that she 
 ceased her meditations and listened. Presently it paused. 
 Then upon the spur of the moment, inspired by the exultant 
 tones of the happy creature, she improvised some appropriate 
 Spanish verses and sang them in reply. When she had finished 
 the bird burst forth in song again, and for an hour there in 
 the cool garden shade they sang and listened alternately. 
 
 In these Peruvian legends, originating in a period almost 
 mediasval in its characteristics, where mystery, prodigy, and 
 miracle were woven into every theme addressed to the im- 
 agination, we have evidence of the same passion for natural 
 beauty — ^for birds and flowers and music — ^that a century 
 later animated the gentle heart of Inez de la Cruz, when she 
 sent forth from her Mexican convent cell her sweet Redondillas 
 and Loas ; metrical compositions where Pan and Flora and 
 Venus surrounded by nymphs recite in alternating numbers 
 praises of earthly and heavenly beauty, joy, and perfection. 
 
 After the works of Sister Inez had been given to the public, 
 another century of art and song passed, and in the declining 
 years of monasticism we find still again the deep poetic love 
 of nature expressed in the choice made by the Mexican painter 
 of this picture. He discards the sad scenes of pious austerity 
 with which the life of Santa Rosa abounds, and seeks to 
 
SANTA ROSA DE LIMA. 19 
 
 delight the souls of the nuns of Santa Catalina by a chaplet 
 of full-blown roses and the legend of the garden with its melo- 
 dious comradeship of sympathetic birds. Verily there is a 
 wondrous store of material for the poet, the artist, and the 
 composer lying in the half-forgotten annals of convent and 
 court, of church and state, during the three long centuries 
 of Spain's rule and misrule within that vast world of hers be- 
 yond our Rio Grande. 
 
 I am assured by the highest authority on the subject in 
 Washington, that " Santa Rosa de Lima is the only born 
 American canonized saint." She died, says Butler, in 1617, 
 and was duly enrolled among the saints in 1671 by Clement X., 
 it having been juridically proven by one hundred and eighty 
 witnesses that several miracles were wrought by her means. 
 
Mexican Painting and Painters 
 
 IN THE 
 
 SEFEVXTEEU^TH AU^D EIGHTEEU^H CES^TU%IES. 
 
 •e- 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 HE great historians of art apparently have main- 
 
 tained a " conspiracy of silence " regarding the 
 
 artists of New Spain. The Alps, the Apennines, 
 and the Pyrenees have been diligently searched in all 
 their recesses for names wherewith to lengthen already 
 unduly swollen lists, while Mexico's more than a hundred 
 recorded painters, a number of whom have left us pictures 
 of great excellence, are utterly ignored or passed with the 
 merest mention. 
 
 The editors of the largest compilations of English, 
 French, and German libraries make no note of Echave, 
 Juarez, Ibarra, Arteaga, and Cabrera. That monumental 
 
 (21) 
 
22 
 
 MEXICAN PAINTERS. 
 
 example of German erudition, the " Encyclopadie der 
 Wissenschaften und Kiinste," whose seventy-five thou- 
 sand pages treat of "all subjects upon which the human 
 intellect exercises itself," only indirectly alludes to Mexico's 
 painters ; " Bryan's Dictionary of Artists and Engravers," 
 with its twelve thousand names ; the forty-six volumes 
 of the great French " Biographie General ; " the twenty-four 
 ponderous quartos of the Encyclopaedia Britannica; the 
 fifteen thousand pages of " Brockhaus' Lexikon ; " our own 
 extensive American Cyclopedia— all, as far as my in- 
 vestigations go, are mute regarding the American branch 
 of that renowned school of which Murillo and Velazquez 
 and Zurbaran were masters. A noteworthy group of artists 
 it was too, and, though widely divided by distance and 
 environment from the parent school, with facile pencils 
 throughout more than two hundred years it gave solace 
 to millions of pious hearts, and illuminated with thousands 
 of brilliant compositions the walls of hundreds of eccle- 
 siastical edifices in the wealthiest region of the New 
 World. 
 
 In the art of a nation, as in its songs and folk-lore, the 
 student of civilization finds a profound significance. Its 
 art history should, if possible, always be easily accessible. 
 The silence of our literature touching this important depart- 
 ment of Mexican culture, which is manifestly so unjust, 
 
MEXICAN PAINTERS. 23 
 
 may also be misleading. Wherefore I trust I shall receive 
 pardon for seeking to break that silence by offering even 
 the scant array of facts herein ventured. 
 
 The earliest artists were produced in a community 
 where civilization had been stimulated by a singular con- 
 junction of favoring conditions. Egypt was blessed with 
 salubrity, sunshine, security from savages, and a kindly soil. 
 Thus it came that her people stored up wealth, developed 
 a leisure class, and made her the mother-nation of the Arts. 
 
 Rome, transformed from brick to marble, became the 
 repository of all that was beautiful in sculpture, painting, 
 and the glyptic art only when her legions had garnered 
 the accumulated treasures of Africa and Asia. 
 
 When the Medici, the Bardi, the Strozzi, the cloth mer- 
 chants and the bankers of the Arno, and the powerful prel- 
 ates in the Tiber Valley were able to buy terrestrial and 
 sell celestial monopolies, and thus lay the cupidity and the 
 credulity of Europe under contribution, the prolific cinque- 
 cento period came to Italy, with its Michael Angelo, its 
 Raphael, and its Leonardo. 
 
 The Dutch and Flemish schools of art flourished while 
 the ships of the Low Countries swept the seas, gathering 
 the wealth of the Indies into the warehouses of Antwerp 
 and Amsterdam, and Spain gave to mankind her great 
 painters only after a stream of metallic treasure, such as 
 
24 MEXICAN PAINTERS. 
 
 the world hitherto but vaguely dreamed of, had begun to 
 flow homeward from her virgin veins in the mountains 
 of Mexico and Peru. 
 
 We of the United States are just now entering upon an 
 unexampled period of art production and art collecting. 
 This might have been predicated, because modern civiliza- 
 tion has moved mankind forward into that stage where there 
 is one superlative form of wealth; one substance that is 
 convertible into all other forms of wealth ; one substance 
 that, with irresistible magnetism, draws to it all material 
 things that men value— the feather from Nubia, the ore from 
 Elba, the painting from Paris. That protean substance, that 
 superlative form of wealth, we possess stored far and wide 
 in mountain masses ready for our hand. From Vancouver 
 to Alabama, from Pictou to Laredo, it awaits our willing, to 
 transmute itself into old masters, grand statues, rare books, 
 antique gems, rich tapestries, or the glories of the modern 
 easel. Our eastern cities began to reach out for it in 1820. 
 They are now in one of its chief centres of production, 
 and we call it stone coal In these days of steam and elec- 
 tricity we may confidently predict that wherever the coal 
 is, there will art treasures and artists collect, and that in 
 the Twentieth Century coal and iron will form the mount- 
 ain that shall compel the presence of the latter-day prophet, 
 whether he be Mohammedan or Christian, Artist or Poet. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 IMPORTED PICTURES BY THE GREAT MASTERS FURNISH 
 MEXICAN ARTISTS WITH THE BEST MODELS. 
 
 T^HREE centuries ago civilization had not passed be- 
 
 yond the cruder stage when stored wealth was 
 
 * mainly represented by the precious metals, and 
 Mexico led the entire world in producing them. In i^^o 
 the four richest men in America were " bonanza kings " at 
 Zacatecas, and fortunes exceeding those of a dozen Euro- 
 pean princelings combined were accumulated in a single 
 generation. 
 
 The prolific mines of the Cordilleras indeed, had already 
 made a large leisure class possible. This class was the 
 clergy, or those opulent contemporaries among the laity 
 whose ideals were formed by its influence. Naturally, 
 therefore, the surplus wealth of the Nation was chiefly 
 expended upon ecclesiastical edifices and their adornments. 
 The Council of Trent (confirmed i ^64) designated the char- 
 acter of the works of art to be used in churches, when it 
 
 (25) 
 
26 MEXICAN PAINTERS. 
 
 ordained that images of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the 
 Saints were to be set up and retained therein, and due 
 honor and veneration accorded them. Prized pictures of 
 holy personages, places, and events were taken from under 
 the grasp of wealthy collectors of the Old World, to be 
 transported to the walls of Mexican sacristies. Titian, 
 Velazquez, Murillo, and a host of lesser names, lent lustre 
 to Mexico's sacred shrines, and many a galleon laden with 
 ingots and coin was carefully convoyed from Vera Cruz 
 through the haunts of the buccaneers, to return from Spain 
 bringing sacred pictures and images, with vessels for the 
 altar, and bones of Saints, and, best of all for the devout 
 believer, pieces of the True Cross from the Mount of 
 Calvary. 
 
 The Mexican statesman, Zamacona, told me that within 
 a few decades works by Velazquez still hung upon the 
 walls of a secularized Puebla refectory, then used as a 
 shelter for a riding school. There are several more or less 
 well-authenticated pictures by Murillo and Velazquez in 
 Mexican private collections, and in the Academy of Fine 
 Arts at the Capital; but I am convinced that the number 
 of meritorious examples of European art now in Mexico 
 has been greatly exaggerated. When poverty fell upon 
 the country during the revolutionary period the works 
 of renowned masters, as well as great numbers from 
 
MEXICAN PAINTERS. 27 
 
 humbler pencils, were sought out by eager speculators 
 and sent to a ready market in the old world. A careful in- 
 vestigator, previous to 1864, examined over two thousand 
 pictures, that were stored by the government after the 
 general secularization of ecclesiastical property, in the con- 
 ventual buildings of the Incarnation, in the Capital. He 
 found very few of foreign origin. Therefore we may 
 conclude with confidence that all save a small fraction of 
 the thousands of canvasses left for our study on the 
 walls of the convents, churches, and private houses 
 throughout the Republic were produced by the pencils of 
 native artists. 
 
 One of the most striking monuments of the ebb and 
 flow of the tide of human wealth and power that the 
 world presents is the magnificent Titian, stranded in a 
 squalid Indian village fifteen miles from Patzcuaro, and 
 near the lake of the same name. This village is called, in 
 the Tarascan tongue, "Tzintzuntzan," an imitative word 
 signifying "the home of the humming birds." A local 
 legend relates how, long ago, the parent tribe, moving 
 southward from the mysterious seven caverns, was greeted 
 on this picturesque shore by flocks of tiny scintillating 
 golden, copper, and crimson-tinted birds. Wise men 
 thereupon took counsel and announced to their followers 
 that the beautiful creatures flashing in the sunlight were 
 
28 MEXICAN PAINTERS. 
 
 the spirits of their tutelary gods assembled to com- 
 mand that a great city should be built then and there. 
 Thus originated the Tarascan capital of the "Attica of 
 Ancient Mexico," Michiocan. Spaniards arriving long after- 
 wards found skillful native artists honoring their tradi- 
 tional gods in pictures formed by attaching the resplen- 
 dent plumage of humming birds to a fabric formed of 
 Maguey fibre. By a strange coincidence the pantheon of 
 the Tarascans contained a supernatural virgin, and thus 
 by an easy transition the simple people came to accept 
 and to represent in the sacred featherwork the Queen of 
 Heaven of the conquering creed. It was but a short step 
 for an artist in tinted feathers to become an artist in 
 paints and oil. The art-loving Philip II., who chose his 
 painters so wisely, may have appreciated the skill of these 
 early makers of the most exquisite mosaics that human 
 handicraft can produce when he sent to their church, dur- 
 ing the Bishopric of Quiroga, a glowing picture by Europe's 
 great colorist. Charles Dudley Warner thus speaks of it in 
 his Mexican Notes: "In the sacristy adjoining the ancient 
 monastery is the treasure of Mexico. The room is oblong 
 and has windows only on one side, toward the west ; 
 broad windows closed with shutters. Across and filling 
 one end, over the vestment chest, is the great picture, 
 'The Entombment' 
 
MEXICAN PAINTERS. 31 
 
 " The canvas is inclosed in a splendid, old carved frame. 
 It contains eleven figures, all life size. In the upper left- 
 hand corner is a bit of very Titianesque landscape. On a 
 hill are three crosses in relief against an orange sky. In 
 the lower left-hand corner is Mary Magdalen seated on 
 the ground, contemplating the nails and crown of thorns. 
 The figure of Christ supported on a sheet is being carried 
 to the tomb— a dark cavern in the rear. Two men hold- 
 ing the sheet support the head, and one the feet. Aiding 
 also in the tender office is a woman, her head bowed over 
 the dead Christ. Behind are St. John, Mary the Virgin, 
 Mary whom Christ loved, and St. Joseph. As you study 
 the picture you have no doubt that it is an original, not a 
 copy, and, thanks to the atmosphere of the region, it is in 
 a perfect state of preservation." 
 
 Hopkinson Smith, who visited this "Entombment" in 
 1889, says : " More than three hundred years have elapsed 
 since the great master touched it, and yet one is deluded 
 into the belief that it was painted yesterday, so fresh, 
 pure, and rich is the color. It is sixteen feet long and 
 seven feet high. The exquisite drawing of each figure, 
 the graduation of light and shade, the marvelous com- 
 position, the relief and modeling of the Christ, the low but 
 luminous tones in which it is painted, the superb har- 
 mony of those tones, all pronounce it to be a work of a 
 
32; MEXICAN PAINTERS. 
 
 master. The subject was a favorite one with Titian, no- 
 tably the Entombment at Venice and the replica at the 
 Louvre. It is quite within the range of probability that 
 Philip either ordered this picture from the master himself 
 or selected it from the royal collection." The figure at 
 the extreme right is pointed out as the portrait of the 
 royal donor. 
 
 In 1^21, and the decades immediately following, when 
 thousands of baptisms were often performed in a single 
 day, and temples were everywhere rising under the su- 
 pervision of zealous friars, the demand for pictures of 
 religious subjects far exceeded the European supply. Then 
 it was that the native artist came forward, and during the 
 Sixteenth Century the preliminary steps for a Cis-Atlantic 
 school were gradually taken on the Mexican Table Land. 
 This centre of art production continued in existence more 
 than two hundred years, and only ceased to be prolific 
 when the throes of revolution convulsed the country at 
 the beginning of the current century. It has, however, 
 bequeathed to the student of to-day a host of pictures 
 belonging to what may be called the "Mexican branch of 
 the great Spanish school of Art." The conditions existing 
 during the formative period of this American subsidiary 
 school furnish an interesting subject for speculation. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE SKILL OF PRE-COLUMBIAN ARTISTS FACILITATES THE 
 INTRODUCTION OF EUROPEAN METHODS. 
 
 'T^HE capacity to appreciate and to execute primitive 
 
 works of art was widely disseminated among the 
 
 Nahuan tribes in pre-Columbian times. This is 
 shown in the remarkable miniature terra-cotta heads found 
 by thousands in the surface soil around the great pyramids 
 of Teotihuacan, and those placed upon some of the sepul- 
 chral vases of the Valley of Mexico. They are often 
 modeled with much skill, and many of them were un- 
 doubtedly intended for portraits. I have deposited an 
 ancient terra-cotta vase of admirable workmanship in the 
 Metropolitan Museum in New York, which was found near 
 Toluca in excavating for the Mexican National Railroad, and 
 also in the same museum and in the neighboring Museum 
 of Natural History several hundred ancient heads that I 
 obtained at localities adjacent to the Capital. Upon one 
 side of the vase is a portrait bust of an Aztec chief, with 
 large ear ornaments and other accessories denoting his rank. 
 
 (33) 
 
34 MEXICAN PAINTERS. 
 
 A number of codices that furnish ample evidence of the 
 patience and artistic training of the pre-Columbian scribes, 
 or we might say illuminators, are preserved with anti- 
 quarian solicitude. Some of these, folded like long maps 
 and drawn in brilliant colors with a bold hand on stag 
 skins specially tanned and prepared with a white surface, 
 I have examined among the prized treasures of English 
 and Continental libraries. Such early drawings were made 
 in most cases as elements in a system of picture writ- 
 ing that appears to have been approaching its phonetic 
 stage. 
 
 Cortez, in one of his letters to Charles V., bears testi- 
 mony to the singular artistic aptitude and skill of the new 
 subjects, as follows : "All which the earth and ocean pro- 
 duce of which King Montezuma could have any knowl- 
 edge he had caused to be imitated in gold, silver, and 
 precious stones, and feathers, and the whole in such great 
 perfection that one could not help believing he saw the 
 very objects represented." The Spanish monarchs seem to 
 have been competent judges of such handicraft, for had 
 not the Imperial Charles himself an expert's knowledge of 
 complex watches and automata; and did not Charles the 
 IV. long afterwards employ his Royal fmgers in embroider- 
 ing gowns for the sacred images of the chapel of San 
 Ildefonso ? 
 
MEXICAN PAINTERS. 3^ 
 
 I have mentioned the works of the aboriginal peoples 
 chiefly to show that the earliest, and probably what is the 
 most protracted period in the development of the arts of 
 drawing, painting, and sculpture had already been traversed 
 by them long before the influence of European thought 
 intruded. Eleven years after the Conquest the native 
 pupils of the schools established at the Capital excited the 
 approbation of the excellent Friar Motolinia, who gives 
 them praise for the brevity of the training required to de- 
 velop the capacity to make fac similes of elaborate manu- 
 scripts, and to produce copies of drawings and illuminations 
 that were received in Spain with many tokens of admira- 
 tion. 
 
 So ingenious, indeed, were the Aztec workmen that no 
 Spanish artisan could conceal his methods. An immigrant 
 weaver sought to levy high prices on the friars, but pious 
 natives watched him secretly, and presently came to the 
 brethren, bringing a supply of both cloth and ready-made 
 robes, all of their own production. Images of the native 
 gods had been manufactured in such vast numbers that 
 the Franciscans alone claim to have destroyed twenty 
 thousand in seven years, and these iconoclasts found it 
 very difficult to make the native worshiper understand the 
 difference between the old deity, to whom so many vir- 
 tues and benefits were ascribed, and the saints that figured 
 
36 MEXICAN PAINTERS. 
 
 in wood and on canvas in the temples of the new faith. 
 That the process of conversion was gradual we have evi- 
 dence in the aboriginal mirrors of obsidian, which are said 
 to have been used in the ceremonies of the sun-wor- 
 shipers. They were taken from the pagan sanctuaries by 
 the newcomers, adorned on the unwrought side with 
 holy images and symbols, and placed upon the altars of 
 the modern temples. I examined in 1881 an admirable 
 example of these shield-shaped objects, about ten inches in 
 diameter, in the collection of Dr. Kaska, in Mexico. An 
 exquisite oil painting of the Virgin in robes of blue smiled 
 benignly from one surface, while upon the reverse a deli- 
 cate polish, the result of ancient native skill, made of the 
 dark volcanic glass a reflector capable of returning an 
 undistorted and distinct image of any brilliant object. 
 
 Indeed, the value of pictorial representation was ac- 
 knowledged in the very earliest efforts of the missionary 
 to loosen the hold of the hereditary gods upon the popu- 
 lar mind. At the shrine of Los Remedios a carved wooden 
 image is still venerated that was brought from Spain by 
 one of Cortez' soldiers ; during the brief earliest period 
 of occupation in 1^19, when the Spaniards held the Capi- 
 tal, it was set up, for worship, among the old Nahuan gods 
 upon the central Teocallis. In the National Museum is pre- 
 served a coiled, feathered serpent-god carved in stone. 
 
MEXICAN PAINTERS. 37 
 
 which being inverted and hollowed out served, until re- 
 cently, in a modern church as a font for holy water. 
 Later ecclesiastical art did not contemn this mingling of 
 the old with the new, and confidence in the immigrating 
 saints was often secured by lending them a local color- 
 ing. The "Black Virgin," number 18 in the collection 
 herein catalogued, was probably thought to appeal with 
 peculiar force to the sympathies of dusky devotees. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE DAWN OF THE FINE ARTS IN NEW SPAIN. 
 
 DOUBTLESS pictures of modest merit rested upon 
 the altar of the first convent built in 1^26 and 
 hung from the walls of the hundred places of 
 worship that zealous Friar Gante claimed to have erected 
 for the people within a brief period following the advent 
 of the Europeans. Native talent, however, would have 
 developed more rapidly but for governmental interference. 
 An ordinance promulgated in 1^27 prohibited workers in 
 the precious metals, under pain of death, from exercising 
 their calling in New Spain. Mexican writers lament this as 
 one of the severest blows ever aimed at domestic culture. 
 No interdiction, however, was placed upon the painters' art, 
 for in 193 the people in the Valley of Cuernavaca sought 
 to prove the imposition by Cortez of unreasonable taxes, 
 by bringing to the Capital eight pictures descriptive of the 
 onerous tributes they had been forced to pay the Marquis. 
 
 Here it is proper to mention a painting that was, and 
 still is, far the most renowned of any that existed in the 
 
MEXICAN PAINTERS. 39 
 
 new world during the period of Spanish supremacy— the 
 Virgin of Guadalupe (No. 68). This miraculous production 
 appeared on the mantle or tilma of the Indian Juan Diego, 
 in 1^31. The following year it was placed in a shrine, and 
 in due season transferred to a magnificent church, where a 
 silver altar railing and rich ornaments of gold added to the 
 grander architectural attractions. The miracle was con- 
 firmed by the congregation of rites at Rome, in 17^4. 
 This painting represents the Virgin standing with the right 
 foot on a crescent moon, supported by a cherub with 
 wings outspread. Her hands are clasped upon her breast. 
 A rose-colored tunic, richly embroidered, covers her form, 
 and a girdle of velvet clasps her waist. The blue mantle, 
 decorated with stars, partially covers the head, upon which 
 rests a golden crown with ten points or rays. 
 
 At a meeting of artists in Mexico, in lyp, Miguel Cab- 
 rera was selected to paint a copy of the sacred image for 
 Pope Benedict XIV.* Cabrera, in 17^6, wrote an extended 
 
 * I am indebted to my friend, Dr. William C. Prime, for the knowl- 
 edge of a book in his library in which are recorded certain judicial proceed- 
 ings attesting the facts of a curious epidemic of miracles that made the 
 end of the Eighteenth Century memorable among the holy images of 
 Italy. Here it is stated that the Virgin of Guadalupe, which had been 
 copied by a capital artist and presented to the Church of St. Nicholas 
 at Rome, was repeatedly seen to move her eyes and otherwise evince 
 her intelligent interest in mundane affairs. In all probability this was 
 the copy by Cabrera, mentioned above. 
 
40 MEXICAN PAINTERS, 
 
 description of the picture, in which he states that it is two 
 feet five inches wide, five feet nine inches long, and that 
 the length of the Virgin's figure is about thirty-three 
 inches. It is painted on a coarse, native cloth, manufact- 
 ured from the fibre of the agave, and "the countenance 
 is so exquisitely beautiful in every feature, that no one 
 could deny on seeing it that it is a supernatural work." 
 It is magnificently framed and preserved under glass in the 
 tabernacle of the church built upon the spot above Lake 
 Tezcoco, just east of the Capital, where the miracle occur- 
 red, and where in the olden times Tonantzin, the Aztec 
 mother of the gods, was devoutly worshiped. 
 
 Portraits of ecclesiastical dignitaries are numerous in 
 Mexico. In 1881 I examined, near Tacuba, in the lofts of 
 the secularized Carmelite Monastery of San Joachim, now 
 owned by General Palmer, of New York, an almost un- 
 broken series of the robed and tonsured officials of one 
 branch of the order, extending through its Mexican exist- 
 ence back to some valley in the Appenines, and the Fif- 
 teenth Century. 
 
 Although the first book printed on the American con- 
 tinent was published in the city of Mexico in 1^36 (more 
 than a century before our first press started at Cam- 
 bridge), and at least eighty volumes saw the light before 
 1600, scarcely a record has come to us of the lives and 
 
MEXICAN PAINTERS. 41 
 
 works of Mexican painters of the Sixteenth Century. In 
 all probability the artists of that period were chiefly drawn 
 from the rank and file of the ecclesiastics, and their names 
 have been lost in the effulgence of their titled superiors. 
 One Rodrigo De Cifuentes, who was born at Cordova, in 
 1493, appears to have followed Cortez to New Spain as 
 early as 1^23, and accompanied him to Honduras. He 
 painted the great leader's portrait, and that of Doiia Ma- 
 rina in I ^38, and afterwards several ecclesiastics of distinc- 
 tion, as well as those of members of the first audiencias. 
 Several of these were believed to exist in the Church of 
 Santiago Tlalteloco within a recent period. He also painted 
 a number of pictures for the Franciscans at Tehuantepec, 
 among which is his masterpiece, the " Baptism of Max- 
 iscatzin." Then came Andres de Concha, who orna- 
 mented the temporary works erected in celebrating the 
 obsequies of Philip II., in 1^99, and also painted an altar- 
 piece for the Church of San Augustin. 
 
 It is not until the early years of the following cent- 
 ury that the history of Mexican art takes a definite form. 
 We have to thank these early years for many of the best 
 pictures that the easels of Mexico have produced. Thence- 
 forward year by year, for two centuries, a series of busy 
 artists sent forth, in an unbroken stream, thousands of 
 canvases, and panels, and plates of copper covered with 
 
42 MEXICAN PAINTERS. 
 
 compositions, suited to the usages of the prevailing cult. 
 Gradually these creations declined in excellence, and, with 
 a few notable exceptions, the deterioration was curiously 
 continuous. This is not the place to discuss the causes 
 that led to the decline. This study belongs to the do- 
 main of the student of ethnology, or to the historian who 
 traces the vicissitudes of races existing upon or springing 
 from the Iberian Peninsula. Spain's domestic art devel- 
 opment naturally deeply affected that of her contemporary 
 and dependent colonies. A glance at the characteristics 
 of the Spanish school during the period under considera- 
 tion will therefore be appropriate. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 CONTEMPORARY PAINTERS AND PAINTING IN ENGLISH AND 
 SPANISH AMERICA AND IN SPAIN. 
 
 FTER the defeat of the Moors in 1492, Spanish 
 
 art, grown rigid and formal under the influence of 
 
 its powerful patrons, the ecclesiastical establish- 
 ments, soon began to yield to the genial teachings of 
 Italian and Flemish masters. The Escorial, that magnifi- 
 cent Convent, Church, College, Palace, and Royal Mau- 
 soleum, than which probably no single edifice ever con- 
 tained so many inestimable treasures, was founded by 
 Philip II. in 1^6^. It at once became a centre for the 
 display of domestic and foreign talent, and its walls grew 
 resplendent with the works of the world's best artists. 
 Among them were many by Titian, whose pencil is still 
 represented in Madrid by forty-one canvases. 
 
 Velazquez, "the painter of kings, and the king of 
 painters," the many-sided Velazquez, who was born in 
 1^99, thus found the way made ready for his glorious 
 genius; and Murillo, who came eighteen years later, had 
 
 (43) 
 
44 MEXICAN PAINTERS. 
 
 in the priceless collections of the royal palace, as well as 
 in the triumphs of Velazquez, rich sources for study and 
 emulation. 
 
 While the master minds of Spain were furnishing com- 
 ing generations with noble examples of artistic and lite- 
 rary excellence,* emigrant compatriots set up their easels 
 in sunny studios looking out upon the eternal snows of 
 Popocatapetl and Orizaba, where nature, enthroned amid 
 harmonious grandeur, seems ever at peace with herself. 
 There, while Velazquez was elaborating his " Bebedores," 
 and royally feasting his friend Rubens in Madrid, Echave 
 the elder and Arteaga wrought into color their glowing 
 conceptions. And during the period that matured Murillo's 
 genius and brought into being the divine creations of the 
 Caridad, Jose Juarez delighted pious souls in the Capital 
 of the new world with the embodiment of his ideals of 
 heavenly saints and holy men. 
 
 *In 1605 the first part of Don Quixote was published, and 
 
 " Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away." 
 He had fruitlessly petitioned Philip II., in 1590, for employment in 
 the new world. 
 
 Lope de Vega lisped his earliest verses to his schoolfellows before 
 1568; in 1588 he boarded the "St. John," and, sailing away with the 
 Invincible Armada, wrote "The Beauty of Angelica" amidst the turmoil 
 of that disastrous expedition. In 1635 his prolific muse was stilled :— 
 
 "death's old trick 
 
 Put pause to life and rhetoric." 
 
MEXICAN PAINTERS. 4^ 
 
 The years that marked the melancholy decline in 
 Spain's artistic power also saw a corresponding recession 
 in the capacity of her favorite colony. The expiring flame 
 in the East rose into fitful brilliancy when Goya appeared 
 in the middle years of the Eighteenth Century, and Mexi- 
 can art burst into an unwonted glow when Ibarra and 
 Cabrera sent forth their beautiful works to adorn her 
 altars and conservatories. Cabrera, the Indian, was fol- 
 lowed, with here and there a brilliant exception, by a 
 series of weak and servile imitators, each one more feeble 
 than his predecessor. The true student of art, however, 
 must investigate its epochs of decadence with the same 
 critical scientific scrutiny that the pathologist bestows 
 upon cases of physical debility, while the philosopher, 
 seeking in mankind the impulses toward higher culture, 
 may gather many suggestive lessons from the annals of 
 nations whose vitality is declining. 
 
 The citizen of the United States observes with curious 
 interest, that while the Mexican and the Spanish schools, 
 though widely separated in space, were thus in their deca- 
 dence passing down the centuries upon parallel lines, his 
 own country during those same years displays but blank 
 pages in the art records of the world. The high table-land 
 of Nahua had already produced thousands of beautiful 
 pictures before the axes of Penn's followers rang among 
 
46 MEXICAN PAINTERS. 
 
 the oak forests of Philadelphia, and the best works from 
 a Mexican palette were executed before New Amsterdam 
 existed. When in 171^ the Scotchman, John Watson, 
 who "stands at the head of the roll of American paint- 
 ers," established himself at Perth Amboy, and when 
 Symbert brought his copy of Van Dyke's Bentivoglio 
 to Newport— an inspiration for our best colonial portrait 
 painters— the greatest Mexican artists had been already 
 long ago gathered to their fathers, and the Mexican school 
 was far along in its decadence. 
 
 Our most meritorious colonial artists, Copley and West, 
 were contemporaries of the later Mexican painters Ibarra 
 and Cabrera, and as our vigorous existing school arose 
 with Allston, Cole, and Vanderlyn, the prolific colonial 
 period of Mexican art expired amid the melancholy ob- 
 scurity of nameless daubsters. 
 
 In the Capital of our Southern neighbor the traveler of 
 to-day is rejoiced by the serious effort that has been made 
 to keep together and preserve those monuments of past 
 intellectual activity which nations in the throes of political 
 regeneration so often allow to perish by the wayside.* 
 
 * Students of the history of civilization have frequent occasion to de- 
 plore the loss of mementoes of inestimable importance, in countries under 
 the influence of a far higher culture than that usually ascribed to Mexico. 
 The recent wanton mutilation of the celebrated monuments of ancient 
 
MEXICAN PAINTERS. 47 
 
 In the National Academy of Fine Arts — formerly known as 
 the Aoademia de las Nobles Aries de San Carlos de la Nueva 
 Espana — which originated in an engraving school estab- 
 lished at the mint by a royal order of Charles III., in 1778, 
 and which now occupies a large structure near the centre 
 of the metropolis, one may study Mexican art in its best 
 phases. This collection remained for many years the most 
 complete upon the American hemisphere. In addition to 
 the paintings of the native masters, it is enriched by beau- 
 tiful examples that are now generally pronounced original 
 from the pencils of Velazquez, Murillo, Leonardo, Guido, 
 Van Dyke, Rubens, Spagnoletto, Vaccara, Guercino, and 
 Zurbaran. The Chapter-room of the Cathedral contains, 
 among other fme pictures, a Virgin by Pietro de Cortona, 
 and "The Virgin of Bethlehem" by Murillo. A set of casts 
 from the antique, costing ^40,000, was sent to the Acad- 
 emy from Spain by Charles III., in 179 1. At the same 
 time came the best known of Mexico's sculptors, Manuel 
 Tolsa, who modeled the imposing equestrian statue of 
 Charles IV. now standing at the eastern entrance of the 
 
 art in the Egyptian tombs of Beni-Hasan is a flagrant case in point. 
 Tliat most precious existing record of early English history — the 
 " Bayeux Tapestry " — (it is really embroidery) — barely escaped destruc- 
 tion during the French revolution. It was demanded by soldiers that 
 they might use it to cover their guns, and was saved by being hastily 
 removed to a secure hiding-place. 
 
48 MEXICAN PAINTERS. 
 
 Grand Paseo leading to Chapultepec. This figure, which 
 will always be noteworthy as the first important work of 
 art in bronze produced in America, was cast by Salvador 
 de la Vega in 1802. It weighs about thirty tons, while the 
 horse and rider are together fifteen feet nine inches high. 
 
 In the National Museum may be found a collection of 
 portraits (formerly in the halls of the National Palace) of 
 the sixty-two Viceroys that governed New Spain. This is 
 arranged in chronological order, beginning with Antonio de 
 Mendoza in 1^3^ and ending in 1821 with Juan O'Donoju, 
 member of the Regency. At the Cathedral is an inter- 
 esting collection of the portraits of all the Mexican Arch- 
 bishops. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE MOST DISTINGUISHED MEXICAN COLONIAL PAINTERS 
 AND THEIR BEST-KNOWN PICTURES. 
 
 THE artists of whom brief biographical sketches are 
 here given were either natives of Mexico, or iden- 
 tified themselves with her Art history by spending 
 important portions of their lives within her borders, and 
 are those whose productions are most highly esteemed.* 
 
 Balthasar Echave (or Chaves), el Viejo, 
 
 is considered the most notable of the 
 founders of the art of painting in Mexico, and his pictures 
 are perhaps the earliest of which the date and origin can 
 be determined with certainty. Many of them at one time 
 
 * I am deeply indebted to the works of Rafael Lucio, Hubert Bancroft, 
 Thomas A. Janvier (particularly to his admirable "Mexican Guide"), to 
 the valuable advice and assistance of the several friends whose names 
 are mentioned in the preface, to the works of Berestain, of Beltrami, of 
 Charles Dudley Warner, of F. Hopkinson Smith, to "Mexico al traves de 
 los Siglos," to Curtis' "Velazquez and Murillo," to Stirling's "Annals," 
 and to many other books and persons whose names are lost amid the 
 lapses of my Mexican notes. 
 
MEXICAN PAINTERS. 
 
 adorned the walls of the Convent of "The Professa." He 
 may be studied now at the National Academy, where sev- 
 eral of his best works have been assembled. There are 
 preserved his " Adoration of the Magi," the " Holy Fam- 
 ily," the Martyrdom of San Aproniano," the " Holy Sep- 
 ulchre," "Santa Ana and the Virgin," and the "Meeting of 
 Mary and Elizabeth," while the "Triumph of Mary," the 
 "Triumph of the Cross," "Faith Destroying Idolatry," 
 and several allegorical pictures adorn the sacristy of the 
 Cathedral at Puebla. Echave not only excelled in his 
 large canvases, where his style was singularly impressive, 
 but he had a capacity for exquisite detail which reminds 
 us of the best Flemish masters. Among the pictures be- 
 longing to this last-named class that have come down to 
 us is a beautiful representation of San Antonio Abad, and 
 San Pablo the first Hermit. 
 
 Echave was a Spaniard, born at Zumaya, in the prov- 
 ince of Guipuzcoa in Spain, who emigrated to Mexico with 
 his style partly formed. He was of the Valencian school, 
 and his later pictures produced in Mexico are considered 
 superior to those he first painted. Berestain says that 
 in 1816 two of his pictures, Santa Isabel de Portugal and 
 Santa Rosa de Viterbo, existed in the establishment of 
 Iraeta, Icasa & Iturbe, at the Capital, and that he wrote 
 "Antiguedad de la Lengua de Cantabria," a quarto volume, 
 
MEXICAN PAINTERS. ^ 
 
 printed at Mexico in 1607. The dates that have been ob- 
 served on his paintings begin with 1603 and extend to 1630. 
 
 "La Sumaya" 
 
 is believed to have been the wife of Echave 
 
 and his skillful co-worker. In the Mexican Cathedral 
 is a picture of St. Sebastian, for which she is highly com- 
 mended by that notable Eighteenth Century annalist, Licen- 
 ciado D. Cayetano de Cabrera y Quintado, in his Escudo 
 de Armas de Mexico."^ This painting, according to Lucio, in 
 
 * As my manuscript goes to the press a letter reaches me from that 
 accomplished student of Mexican literature and history, Janvier, bringing 
 with many valued facts "a delightful literal bit from dear old Cabrera, 
 who is a maddening creature to read, for he never comes to a full stop 
 save when he ends a paragraph." I take the liberty to print this "bit" 
 directly from the translator's letter, feeling assured that whosoever 
 reads it will join me in hoping that one so well equipped, and so deeply 
 enamored of all that is beautiful and bizarre in Mexican lore will con- 
 tinue throughout many volumes to delight those who stand expectant, 
 watching the gradual drawing aside of the veil thrown by time and 
 change about the quaint world of Spanish-American thought. 
 
 "Referring to San Sebastian, Cabrera writes: — 
 
 * . . . in one of his Altars, and it is that one which is erected in 
 the tras-coro, is seen through glass his Image, and valiant Picture, a 
 marvel to Professors of the Art, and the work, according to its tradition, 
 of the famous Sumaya, a celebrated Painter in this City, Mistress not 
 only in painting, but in that she taught the celebrated Visca'mo Balthasar 
 Echave, the first, and whom she had for her husband, and disciple, and 
 the sons of these parents degenerated not : this beautiful Image has been 
 lately placed in this same site, and Altar, which is also that of Nra. Sra. 
 del Perddn. Escudo de Armas, 1746, page 140.' " 
 
^2 MEXICAN PAINTERS. 
 
 1864 still occupied its dark and elevated position beneath 
 protecting glass, defying every attempt to find upon it 
 a legible date or signature. To La Sumaya " are also 
 attributed by Rivera Cambas certain representations of 
 passages in the life of the Virgin over the altar in the 
 Capilla de los Reyes in the same Cathedral. 
 
 Sebastian Arteaga, 
 
 who signed himself Notario del Santo 
 Oficio, was both a painter and an architect ; he is joined 
 with Echave in the honor of having founded the Mex- 
 ican school. He came from Spain in the last years of 
 the Sixteenth Century with his manner already formed. 
 His effects are striking and grand, and while the drawing 
 of his human figures is well worthy of commendation, his 
 accessories are carelessly executed. The " Christ and St. 
 Thomas" and the ''Crucifixion," in the National Academy, 
 are representative works of his pencil, and Beltrami men- 
 tions with high praise a "Visitation of the Virgin to Santa 
 Theresa." 
 
 Telpochtepico 
 
 was a pupil of Arteaga, and a Tarascan 
 Indian from near Lake Patzcuaro, a district of Michoacan 
 famous in aboriginal times for its exquisite mosaic pictures 
 cunningly formed from the many-tinted humming-bird 
 
MEXICAN PAINTERS. ^} 
 
 feathers. This native artist is said to have made satisfac- 
 tory progress in oils. 
 
 Luis Juarez, or Xuarez, 
 
 whose works are contemporary with those 
 of Echave, which they resemble without equaling, is dis- 
 tinguished for the beauty of the angels with which his 
 pictures abound ; many of them appear to have been pro- 
 duced for the Carmelite nuns and monks of the valley. 
 In the National Academy he may be studied in the quaint 
 "Martyrdom of St. Lawrence" that hangs in the Sala de 
 Actos, and the admirable "Christ in the Garden" in the 
 first gallery. He painted as early as 1610; in 1621 he 
 produced a grand altar piece for the Church of Jesus Maria, 
 for which he received nine thousand dollars.* 
 
 Diego Bongraf 
 
 is believed to have been a Spaniard 
 domicilated in Mexico ; several of his works suggesting 
 old world culture are in Puebla, on one of which is the 
 date 16^6. 
 
 Nicolas Becera 
 
 painted in 16^3 ; his manner is similar 
 
 to that of Luis Juarez. 
 
 * The sum paid Murillo in 1674 for the eight grand pictures painted 
 for La Caridad was less than four thousand dollars. These productions 
 of the artist's best period are ranked high among the world's masterpieces. 
 
5'4 MEXICAN PAINTERS. 
 
 Balthasar de Echave (or Chaves), el Mozo, 
 
 was the son of Echave el Viejo. One of 
 his pictures in the National Academy is dated i66^. His 
 manner is animated and frank, but wanting in care, and 
 he falls far behind the older artist in his capacity for de- 
 picting the devotional sentiments. 
 
 Jose' Juarez, or Xuarez, 
 
 drew admirably, and is ranked by some 
 Mexican critics with the elder Echave. The angels in the 
 picture of the "Martyrdom of St. Pastor and St. Justo," 
 in the National Academy, are worthy of the hand of an 
 early Italian master. The " Life of St. Alexis " and " The 
 Adoration of the three Magi" are in the same collection. 
 He painted between 1642 and 16^3. 
 
 J. Sanches Salmeron, 
 
 one of whose works is dated 1670, drew 
 well and painted some vigorous pictures. 
 
 Pedro Ramirez 
 
 is believed to be the painter who made 
 a reputation in Spain before coming to the new world, 
 and whose works are found worthy of a place in the 
 
MEXICAN PAINTERS. SS 
 
 National Museum at Madrid. In Mexico his name is pre- 
 served by numerous pictures on panel. 
 
 M. Luna 
 
 drew gracefully and painted in a style that 
 is thought to resemble Murillo in his first epoch. Some of 
 his pictures have been confidently ascribed to the Spanish 
 master. 
 
 Juan Correa 
 
 was the master of Ibarra and Cabrera, and a 
 prolific painter. He produced works of fair merit, among 
 which are the " Immaculate Conception " over the stalls in 
 Mexico's Cathedral, and the " Assumption," " The Catholic 
 Church," and the "Entry into Jerusalem," in the neigh- 
 boring sacristy. He has also a large canvas containing 
 scenes from the life of St. Francis, in the sacristy of the 
 Church of San Diego at Aguas Calientes. In 182^ Bel- 
 trami described a series of pictures painted by this artist 
 on the walls of the Professa refectory, representing "The 
 history of the human heart deformed by Sin and regen- 
 erated by Religion and Virtue." The Italian declares that 
 this series compares favorably with those time-honored 
 pictorial expositions of dogma that look down from the 
 frescoes of Pisa's Campo Santo and the cloister walls of 
 Santa Maria de Novella, at Florence. 
 
^6 MEXICAN PAINTERS. 
 
 Juan Rodriguez Juarez, or Xuarez, 
 
 was the nephew of Jose Juarez, and was 
 sometimes called the Mexican Caracci. He had a prolific 
 pencil and a high local reputation. He is considered the 
 earliest artist to adopt the manner that was afterwards 
 adopted and accentuated by Cabrera, and which became 
 general in Mexico in the Eighteenth Century. The pict- 
 ures of these artists were thinly spread upon the canvas, 
 and their lights and shades feebly contrasted, but their 
 colors were brilliant and clear. Notable works of Juarez 
 are the " Epiphany " and the " Assumption," in the Cathe- 
 dral at Mexico. Others are at Morelia, in the sacristy of 
 the Cathedral and in the Church of the Carmen. Paint- 
 ings of his are dated 1702 and 1720. 
 
 Nicolas Rodriguez Juarez, or Xuarez, 
 
 was a priest, a portrait painter, a brother 
 of the last-named artist, and has been surnamed "the 
 Apelles of Mexico." His earliest pictures are in the style 
 of the Seventeenth Century; he afterwards painted in the 
 more brilliant and luminous manner of a later period. His 
 picture, in the National Museum, of Don Joachin Munez 
 de Sta Cruz at four years of age is in his best manner. 
 In his Adoration of the Magi," in the same collection, he 
 has introduced a portrait of himself. He has a notable 
 
MEXICAN PAINTERS. ^7 
 
 picture in the Church of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, at Mo- 
 relia ; a colossal "San Cristobal" (dated 1722), in the 
 cloister of the Colegio de Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe 
 near Zacatecas, and a fine "Triumph of Mary" in the 
 Church of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, at Celaya. One of 
 his pictures St. Gertrude"— is dated 1690. 
 
 Cristobal Villalpando, 
 
 who painted in 171 3, "invented pict- 
 ures," says Lucio, "with unusual facility; what he did 
 was in poor taste— his drawing was bad and his col- 
 oring worse." He is represented in the Sacristy of the 
 Cathedral at Mexico by three large paintings : in the 
 "Glory of St. Michael," the "Immaculate Conception," and 
 the "Triumph of the Sacrament;" and in the National 
 Academy by the "Interior of the Convent of the Bethle- 
 mites." In 182^ pictures from his hand were to be seen 
 in the churches of San Agustin and San Francisco at the 
 Capital, and also at Queretaro and Celaya. 
 
 ANidNio Torres 
 
 has three pictures at Guadalupe, near 
 Zacatecas : " San Bonaventura receiving the Sacrament," 
 the "Last Supper," and "San Francisco on the Monte 
 Alverna," all painted in 1720. 
 
^8 mexican painters. 
 
 Jose Torres 
 
 painted for the Palace of the Inquisition, 
 and is said to have been a pupil of the earliest Mexican 
 artists. 
 
 Don Miguel de Mendoza 
 
 is represented by several pictures in 
 Puebla, dated 1730. It is said that he was a native 
 Indian, and that he received his title of " Don " from 
 the King, to whom he had presented one of his paintings. 
 
 El Hermano Manuel Jesuito, 
 
 so called because he so signed his pict- 
 ures, was a Mexican who drew indifferently, but suc- 
 ceeded in infusing a certain sentiment into his figures. 
 Two pictures of his are recorded : one, a large " Holy 
 Family," is in the School of Medicine at Mexico ; the other, 
 a " Virgin," is owned by Sr. Ramierez. He is also cred- 
 ited with "The Last Supper," in the refectory of "The 
 Fernandinos." 
 
 Jose Ibarra, 
 
 called from the richness of his color the 
 Murillo of New Spain, was, without doubt, next to Cabrera 
 
MEXICAN PAINTERS. ^9 
 
 the first Mexican painter of the Eighteenth Century; in- 
 deed, some of his works are considered equal to Cabrera's 
 best. He may be studied at the National Academy in his 
 "Woman of Samaria," the "Woman taken in Adultery," and 
 in an admirable portrait — all in the second gallery. At 
 Puebla, the Cathedral contains eleven interesting pictures : 
 the "Holy Sacrament," the "Assumption," the "Apparition 
 of Nuestra Senora de la Merced," a " Santa Leocadia," the 
 " Virgin and Child," the " Last Supper," " Christ washing 
 the feet of the Disciples," "The Virgin protecting the 
 Chapter," the "Apparition of the Virgin del Pilar," and 
 "San Ildefonso receiving the Chasuble," and at Guada- 
 lupe, near Zacatecas, he has an ex-voto to San Jose. 
 Beltrami, in 182^, speaks of an exquisite "St. Inez" in the 
 Church of the Bethlemites, now converted into a public 
 library. There is also a much-injured " Triumph of Mary " 
 in the choir of the Compani'a at Guanajuato. The date 
 1740 occurs on one, and 1747 and 17^ on others of this 
 artist's works. 
 
 Francisco Martinez 
 
 produced many pictures for the religious 
 houses, during the early years of the Eighteenth Century, 
 in a style somewhat resembling that of the renowned 
 Cabrera. 
 
6o 
 
 MEXICAN PAINTERS. 
 
 Miguel Cabrera, 
 
 a Zapoteca Indian, was born in Oaxaca. 
 He is generally considered the first Mexican artist of his 
 century. His pictures are frequently signed and dated, 
 and during the years fronn 17^0 to 1767, and probably for 
 a much longer period, he furnished the walls of the clois- 
 ters and churches of the Capital and other cities of New 
 Spain with a vast number of admirable works. No other 
 painter of Mexico has covered larger canvases. At the 
 same time many of his small pictures on copper, wood, 
 and canvas are of superior excellence. His style is peculiar 
 to himself and his epoch. It is light, facile, without labo- 
 rious finish, and his colors, thinly spread upon the canvas, 
 are strikingly luminous. His capacity to represent the 
 human hand, like that observed in all the Mexican painters 
 of the last century, was deficient, but the drawing and 
 expression of his heads are singularly good. 
 
 Cabrera borrowed many of his compositions from the 
 inventions of European masters that reached Mexico by 
 means of engravings or otherwise. He preserved, how- 
 ever, unswervingly his own peculiar style and manner of 
 handling the pencil, and when he copied in oil celebrated 
 trans-Atlantic pictures his admirers claim that he bestowed 
 new attractions by changing the composition to suit his 
 
MEXICAN PAINTERS. 6l 
 
 own rich fancy. The grand picture known as the "Virgin 
 of the Apocalypse," the " Bernard and Anselm," and the 
 portrait of himself, are in the National Academy. At 
 Guanajuato, Cabrera painted a fme series of saints for the 
 beautiful " Compaiiia," and in the Sacristy of that church 
 is his "Child Jesus blessing San Francisco Regis and San 
 Francisco Borja," and his "Child Jesus blessing San Ignacio 
 Loyola and San Francisco Xavier." In the Church of San 
 Francisco, at Irapuato, he has a " Virgin of Guadalupe," and 
 at Morelia a portrait of Bishop Palafox y Mendoza. Cabrera 
 not only is known as a painter, an architect, and a sculptor, 
 but also as an author. His book published in 17^6 was 
 devoted to showing that the picture of the Virgin of Guad- 
 alupe was painted neither in water colors nor in oil, nor 
 in any other manner artificial or human. 
 
 Jose Antonio Vallejo, 
 
 a pupil of Cabrera, may be studied in 
 the Church of San Diego, in Mexico, where are fifteen 
 large pictures by him, notable among which are "The 
 Last Supper," "The Prayer in the Garden," and "The 
 Exposition of Christ." The fine votive picture on the 
 stairway at the Conservatorio de Musica at the Capital, 
 as well as "The Feast of the Pentecost" and "The Holy 
 
62 MEXICAN PAINTERS. 
 
 Family'' at the College of San Ildefonso, are by him. Val- 
 lejo has also two pictures in the Sacristy of the Parroquia 
 at Guanajuato, "San Andres Avelino dying at the Altar," 
 and "San Juan Nepomuceno confessing the Princess Joan 
 of Bavaria," and pictures illustrating the lives of Santa 
 Teresa and San Elias at the Church of the Carmen, in 
 San Luis Potosi. 
 
 Mariano Vasquez 
 
 is called by Beltrami a worthy pupil of 
 Cabrera and the Carlo Dolce of Mexico. 
 
 Jose Alcibar 
 
 was a pupil of Ibarra. He painted be- 
 tween the years 1762 and 1793. There are two excellent 
 works from his pencil in the Cathedral at Mexico— "The 
 Last Supper" and "The Triumph of Faith," and in 182^ 
 there was a fme "San Luis Gonzaga" in the Sacristy. At 
 San Cosme he is represented by an interesting allegorical 
 picture, and in the Church of San Marcos in Aguas Cali- 
 entes he has an "Adoration of the Magi." 
 
 Patricio Morlet, Francisco Leon, Nicolas Enriques, 
 and Jose' Paez 
 
 painted after the manner of Cabrera, but 
 none of them attained the excellence of that master. 
 
mexican painters. 63 
 
 Don Francisco Gomez de Valencia, 
 
 after producing a number of pictures for 
 the Carmelite Brothers at Granada in Spain, came to 
 Mexico, where he is represented by pictures of moderate 
 merit. 
 
 Andres Lopez, 
 
 who painted in 1797, has a picture in 
 the Parroquia at Aguas Calientes representing scenes from 
 the life of San Juan Nepomuceno, and in the Church of 
 the Encino a fine series of "The Stations of the Cross," 
 lacking "The Descent from the Cross." 
 
 Joseph Joaquin Magon and Manuel Caro 
 
 were Puebla painters of fair capacity. 
 They may be studied in the Santuario de Ocotlan, near 
 Tlaxcala. 
 
 Fr. Miguel de Herrera 
 
 was an Agustin friar who painted in the 
 period between 1742 and 1778. 
 
 Juan Tinoco 
 
 made Puebla his residence, and produced 
 pictures that departed so widely from the established 
 
64 MEXICAN PAINTERS. 
 
 Mexican style of the period that they are often mistaken 
 for European works. 
 
 Joaquin Esquivel 
 
 is represented by paintings in the Church 
 of the Loreto, at the Capital. Probably the fine "San 
 Georgio " beneath the choir, and " Scenes from the Life of 
 Loyola," are from his hand. 
 
 Ant6nio Echevarria 
 
 was a skillful Mexican artist who with 
 Juan de Dios Cerda made about fourteen hundred colored 
 drawings of the flowering plants of New Spain. They 
 were executed for the scientific exploring expedition sent 
 out by the Spanish King, Charles IV., in 179^, under the 
 direction of Martin Sesse. This collection is still unpub- 
 lished, but is well known to botanists, who often refer to 
 the copies in the De Candolle Library at Geneva. The 
 originals were sent to De Candolle for publication, and 
 two hundred and seventy-one species, including seventeen 
 new genera, were founded upon the drawings alone. 
 
 They were unexpectedly and peremptorily withdrawn 
 by Mocino, an associate of Sesse, and the Genevan botan- 
 ist was compelled to have them copied with the utmost 
 
MEXICAN PAINTERS. 6^ 
 
 rapidity. This was accomplished, with the assistance of 
 about a hundred ladies, in ten days. The names of Eche- 
 varria and Cerda are permanently fixed in the scientific 
 literature of encyclopedias and text-books. Through a 
 fortunate accident their work touched at Geneva the great 
 and growing current of modern civilized thought, and thus 
 they were rescued by a foreigner from the unmerited neg- 
 lect accorded their more talented compatriots. The genus 
 Echeveria, among other vegetable productions known to 
 American horticulturists, embraces air plants, whose bril- 
 liant blossoms at certain seasons embellish the rough bark 
 of evergreen oaks on the slopes of Orizaba, Mexico's 
 grandest mountain. 
 
 Juan de Dios Cerda 
 
 was a clever artist associated with 
 Echevarria. His name is permanently placed in scientific 
 nomenclature by the genus Cerdia, which was formed to 
 include certain plants that became known solely through 
 the drawings sent, as before described, from Mexico to 
 Madrid and thence to De Candolle at Geneva. Cerdia em- 
 braces some curious little vegetables with pointed leaves, 
 and flowers bearing but one stamen, that were recently 
 rediscovered by Dr. Palmer near San Luis Potosi. 
 
66 mexican painters. 
 
 Rafael Jimeno 
 
 was a Spaniard and a disciple of Mengs. 
 He came to the new world in 1791 to take a position in the 
 Academy of San Carlos. To him was assigned the deco- 
 ration of a part of the Cathedral dome at Mexico. He is 
 often incorrect and theatric, but he succeeded better in 
 mural painting than in other forms of artistic work. He is 
 represented by a "St. Thomas" and a "Virgin with the 
 Infant Christ " in the Church of Jesus Maria in the Capital. 
 
 Eduardo Tresguerras 
 
 was born in Celaya in 176^, and died 
 there in 1833. He was an architect, sculptor, and painter, 
 and has been called the Michael Angelo of Mexico. His 
 great work is the Church of our Lady of Mt. Carmel, in 
 his native city, a beautiful structure enriched by frescoes 
 and oil paintings from his own hand. He has also a 
 "Virgin of the Apocalypse" in Irapuato. 
 
 The manuscript of this sketch was prepared more than a year ago 
 and laid aside with the hope that it might be increased and corrected 
 by further personal investigations in Mexico. The necessary journey 
 has not yet been made. The author now prints it believing that pub- 
 licity will be a means of bringing into his possession additional infor- 
 mation wherewith to enlarge, revise, and systematize a work that has 
 already occupied a number of delightful hours. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PAINTERS OF THE SIXTEENTH, SEVENTEENTH, AND 
 EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES, IN MEXICO. 
 
 Juan AGUILEAR. (" Virgin de la Purisi- 
 ma," at the National Academy.) 
 
 JOSE GINES DE AGUIRRE. (A painter 
 sent from Spain to the Academy of 
 San Carlos about 1785. He has a 
 fine fresco in the Sagrario Metropol- 
 itano.) 
 
 JOSE ALCIBAR, 1775-1793. ("Saint 
 Joseph," Lamborn collection.) See 
 page 60. 
 
 JOSE ALFANO. 
 
 ALVARADO. 
 
 Nicolas angulo. 
 
 Antonio AGUILLERA. (Picture in the 
 Church of the Incarnation.) 
 
 ARELLANO. 1770. (" Head of an Ecclesi- 
 astic, " Lamborn collection.) 
 
 VENTURA ARNAES. 
 
 ARRIAGA. 
 
 SEBASTIAN ARTEAGA. See page 52. 
 ALONZO BARBA. 
 
 DIEGO BONGRAF, 1656. See page 53. 
 FR. DIEGO BECERA. 
 
 NICOLAS BECERA, 1653. ("Flight into 
 Egypt," Lamborn collection.) See 
 page 53. 
 
 JOSE BUSTOS. 
 
 Miguel CABRERA, I75&-I767. ("Virgin 
 and Child Crowned," Lamborn col- 
 lection.) See page 60. 
 
 PEDRO CALDERON, 1721. 
 
 Casanova, 1664. 
 manuel carcanio. 
 
 MANUEL CARO. (Pictures in Tlaxacala 
 painted in 1781, " Female Head with 
 Dove," Lamborn collection.) See 
 page 63. 
 
 IGNASIO CASTRO. 
 
 Rodrigo de Cifuentes, born 1493. 
 ANDRES DE Concha, 1599. 
 
 CASPAR CONRADO. 
 TOMAS CONRADO. 
 
 CORDERO. (" Christ in the Temple," 
 Church of Jesus Maria, Mexico.) 
 
 JUAN DE DIOS CERDA, 1795-1804. 
 (Flower Painter.) See page 65. 
 
 (67) 
 
68 MEXICAN 
 
 Juan CORREA, 1739. ("Saint Michael," 
 "Saint Gabriel," and "Head of a 
 Saint," Lamborn collection.) See 
 page 55. 
 
 Miguel Correa. 
 
 CRUDEClNDO, JOSE DE. (Pupil of Juan 
 Correa.) 
 
 ANTONIO DELGADO. 
 
 MANUEL DOMINGUEZ. 
 
 BALTHAZAR ECHAVE (the elder), 1612- 
 1630. ("St. Augustin," Lamborn 
 collection.) See page 49. 
 
 BALTHASAR ECHAVE (the younger), 1665. 
 See page 54. 
 
 MANUEL ECHAVE. 
 
 ATANASIO ECHEVARRIA, 1795-1804. 
 (Flower Painter.) See page 64. 
 
 NICOLAS ENRIQUEZ, 1738. ("Mater 
 Doloroso," Lamborn collection.) See 
 page 62. 
 
 DON Miguel Espinosa de los Mon- 
 
 TEROS. 
 
 Joaquin esquivel. See page 64. 
 
 Francisco de los Angeles, 1699. 
 ("The Twelve Apostles," at Los Re- 
 medios.) 
 
 nicolas fuen labarda. 
 Sebastian de Gante. 
 
 Manuel Garcia. (Architect and Painter 
 in perspective.) 
 
 GERONIMO ANTONIO GiL. (Principal 
 engraver at the Mint and director of 
 the School of Fine Arts, 1779.) 
 
 FRANCISCO Gomez de Valencia. 
 
 Rafael Gutierez. 
 
 Roberto Gutierez. 
 
 PAINTERS. 
 
 MANUEL Guerrero. 
 MARIANO Guerrero. 
 
 ALLISANDRO GUERRERO. 
 
 (The three Guerreros were brothers, 
 and native Mexicans.) 
 
 JUAN HERRERA, called "The Divine." 
 (Twelve pictures of Holy Martyrs in 
 the Mexican Cathedral.) 
 
 FR. Miguel de Herrera, 1742-1778. 
 ("Christ holding a Child," Lam- 
 born collection.) See page 63. 
 
 JOSE Ibarra, born 1688, died 1756. 
 ("Saint Sebastian," Lamborn col- 
 lection.) See page 58. 
 
 INANES. 
 
 ANDRES ISLAS, 1773. 
 
 RAFAEL JlMENO. (Director of painting 
 in the San Carlos Academy, 1791.) 
 See page 66. 
 
 Jose" Juarez (or Xuarez), 1653. See 
 page 52. 
 
 LUIS JUAREZ (or Xuarez), 1610-1630. 
 See page 54. 
 
 JUAN RODRIGUEZ JUAREZ (or Xuarez), 
 1702-1720. ("Virgin and Child," 
 Lamborn collection.) See page 56. 
 
 Nicolas Rodriguez Juarez (or 
 Xuarez), 1690-1722. See page 56. 
 
 JUAN JOSEPH JURADO, 1727. ("San 
 Rafael," Lamborn collection.) 
 
 FRANCISCO LEON. See page 62. 
 
 ANDRES LOPEZ, 1797. ("The Nativ- 
 ity," Lamborn collection.) See page 
 63. 
 
 CLEMENTE LOPEZ. (Pupil of the found- 
 ers of the Mexican School.) 
 
 DAVALOS Sebastian Lopez. 
 
MEXICAN 
 
 M. Luna. Seepage 55. 
 LOPEZ DE HERRERA. 
 
 EL hermano Manuel jesuito. 
 
 See page 58. 
 
 DOMINGO MANRIQUE. (Architect and 
 painter.) 
 
 JOSEPH JOAQUIN MAGON, 1754. ("Tlie 
 Last Supper, " at Tlaxala.) See 
 page 63. 
 
 FRANCISCO MARTINEZ, 1721-1736. 
 ("Tlie Nativity," Lamborn collec- 
 tion.) See page 59. 
 
 DON MIGUEL MENDOZA, 1730. See 
 page 58. 
 
 PATRICIO MORLET, 1761. See page 62. 
 JOSE MOTA, 171 1. 
 MANUEL ORELLANA. 
 
 Manuel Osorio. 
 
 Jose PAEZ. (Pictures in the Cloister of 
 San Fernando.) See page 62. 
 
 Jose pardo. 
 Perulero. 
 
 DIEGO Perez, 1720. (" The Revelation 
 to Saint Joseph," Lamborn collec- 
 tion.) 
 
 Pascual Perez. 
 
 Francisco Plata. 
 
 Pedro quintana. 
 
 Francisco Ramirez. 
 
 Pedro Ramirez. See page 54. 
 
 ANTONIO Rodriguez, 1668. (" San Au- 
 gustin," at the National Academy.) 
 
 JUAN JOSE RODRIGUEZ, 1684. 
 
 JUAN SAENS. (Painted a greater part of 
 the interior of the Cathedral dome.) 
 
 PAINTERS. 69 
 Juan Salguero. 
 
 J. SANCHES SALMERON, 1670. See page 
 54. 
 
 ANTONIO SanCHES. (Pupil of Juan 
 Correa.) 
 
 SANTANDER. 
 
 MANUEL SERNA. 
 
 P. SILVA. 
 
 " LA SUMAYA." See page 51. 
 
 TELPOCHTEPICO. See page 52. 
 
 CRISTOBAL TALAVERA, 1730. 
 
 JUAN TINOCA. See page 63. 
 
 ANTONIO TORRES, 1719-1720. ("Last 
 Supper," " San Bonaventura," and 
 "San Francisco on the Monte Alver- 
 na," at Guadalupe, near Zacatecas.) 
 See page 57. 
 
 JOSE TORRES. See page 58. 
 
 EDUARDO TRESGUERRAS, born 1765, 
 died 1833. See page 66. 
 
 JUAN DE URTADO. (Architect and 
 painter in perspective.) 
 
 JOSE VALDERRAIN. 
 
 Don Francisco Gomez de Valen- 
 cia. See page 63. 
 
 Francisco Antonio Vallesco. 
 ("The Death of San Francisco 
 Xavier at San Ildefonso.") 
 
 JOSE Antonio Vallejo, 1767. See 
 page 61. 
 
 JOSE MARIA VAZQUEZ, 1797. 
 
 ALONZO VASQUEZ. (Contemporary of 
 Echave el Viejo.) 
 
 MARIANO VASQUEZ. See page 62. 
 
 JOSE JOAQUIN VEGA, 1783. 
 
70 
 
 MEXICAN PAINTERS. 
 
 Velazquez. (An architect and painter 
 sent from Spain as professor at the 
 Academy of San Carlos about 1785.) 
 
 Cristobal Villalpando, 1711-1713. 
 
 See page 57. 
 
 CARLOS Villalpando. 
 
 Juan de villalobos 
 
 Tlaxcala.) 
 
 (Pictures at 
 
 ViLLAVICENCiO. 
 JOSE VILLEGAS, 1657. 
 RAFAEL XIMENES. 
 ZALAZAR, 1613. 
 ALONZO ZARATE. 
 
 MIGUEL Zendejas. (Picture in the Ca- 
 thedral at Puebla.) 
 
 With a few exceptions the dates given have been observed on pictures signed by the artists. 
 
 It is interesting to note that in 1887 a tardy and scant justice was rendered to some 
 half dozen early Mexican painters by Appleton's Cyclopgedia of American Biography, 
 a work possessing a rare guarantee of scholarly completeness in the name of John 
 Fiske upon the title page; but in the 1889 edition of that great compendium of 
 biographical knowledge, "Phillips' Dictionary," with its more than one hundred 
 thousand names of persons more or less distinguished, collected from seven lan- 
 guages and forty-nine national encyclopaedias, dictionaries, and catalogues, 1 find 
 not a single reference to Mexican art or Mexico's artists. 
 
PAINTINGS 
 
 Illustrating the Mexican Branch 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SP^O^ISH SCHOOL. 
 
 The work of Artists in New Spain during the Seventeenth and 
 Eighteenth Centuries. 
 
 Collected in the City of Mexico in 1881 and 188^, by Robert H. Lamborn, 
 and now deposited on loan with the Pennsylvania Museum, 
 at Memorial Hall, Philadelphia. 
 
 1. saint GABRIEL. 
 
 Angel, holding White Lily. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 6 feet by 3 
 feet. Signed "Juan Correa, i7S9-'^ 
 
 2. SAINT MICHAEL. 
 
 Angel carrying a Cross with Inscrip- 
 tion, " Quis ut de-US." 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 5 feet 11 
 inches hy ^ feet i inch. Signed "Juan 
 Correa, 17^9." 
 
 3. A FLAMING HUMAN HEART, WITH THE 
 
 FIGURE OF A CRUCIFIED CHRIST 
 UPON IT. 
 
 Painted on canvas, Si^e, i foot 4 
 inches by i foot 2 inches. 
 
 4. THE SAVIOUR. 9- THE NATIVITY. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 2 feet 8 
 inches by 2 feet. Inscription, "Portrait 
 
 (71) 
 
 from and coftume of Chriji our Lord, 
 according to the defcription by St. An- 
 felm, and the portrait painted by St. 
 Luke. ' ' 
 
 5, 6, 7, AND 8 
 
 Illustrate upon an ornamented ground 
 THE Spanish sentence inscribed on 
 each picture. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, i foot 10 
 inches by 1 foot 4 inches. Infcriptions : 
 No. 5, " Nada es con parable ai verda- 
 dero amigo ; ' ' No. 6, "No ha de enfa- 
 dar el vicio del amigo ; " No. 7, " Nada 
 dessea quien tiene loque basta ; ' ' No. 8, 
 "El Virtuoso trabaxo pide su reposo." 
 
 Painted on canvas, 
 inches by 11 inches. 
 
 Si{e, I foot 4 
 
72 
 
 MEXICAN PAINTERS. 
 
 10. SAINT LIMBANIA VIRGIN, SUR- 
 ROUNDED BY SYMPATHETIC WILD 
 ANIMALS. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, ^ feet 7 
 inches hy 5 feet 6 inches. Signed ' ' Fr. 
 Miguel de Herrera, Augustino, 172^." 
 
 11. PORTRAIT OF JUANA INEZ DE LA 
 
 CRUZ. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 3 feet 5 
 inches hy 2 feet 8 inches. From Pueb- 
 lo, Mexico. Infcription, on the book, 
 ' ' IV orks of the unique poetess. Sifter 
 Juana Ine^ de la Cru^; " below, "Faith- 
 ful copy of another which she herfelf 
 made and painted with her own hand. 
 The Rev. Mother Juana Ine{ de la Cru^, 
 Phxnix of America, glorious perfection 
 of her fex, honor of the nation of the 
 New W orld, and subject of the admira- 
 tion and praises of the Old. She was 
 born November 12th of the year 165 1, at 
 1 1 in the evening. She received the re- 
 ligious habit of the Doctor Maximus, St. 
 Jerome, in his convent in this city of 
 Mexico, at 17 years of age, and she 
 died on Tuesday, April lyth, 1699, her 
 age being forty-seven years 5 months 
 5 days and 5 hours. May she rest in 
 peace. Amen." 
 
 12. SAINT JOSEPH. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 2 feet i 
 inch hy 2 feet 9 1-2 inches. 
 
 13. THE LAST SUPPER. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 6 feet 4 
 inches by 3 feet 7 inches. 
 
 14. THE REV. MOTHER MARIA ANTONIA 
 
 DE RIVERA. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 4 feet i 
 inch bv 2 feet 7 inches. Probably the 
 costume in which she is represented is 
 
 that worn during the ceremony incident 
 upon entering the order. Infcription, 
 The Rev. Mother Maria Antonia 
 de Rivera, Nun of the Holy Company 
 of the Most Blessed Mary, commonly 
 called Education. She received the hab- 
 it at the age of 19 years, on the 9th 
 of November, 7755, and professed on 
 the 12th of December, 1757, in the 
 Holy Convent of Our Lord of the Bap- 
 tismal Font of the city of Mexico, at 
 the hands of the most illustrious Doctor 
 Don Manuel Antonio Rolodt Rio y 
 Bieyra, most worthy Archbishop of the 
 city of Manila.'' Inj'criptions running 
 up on each side of picture: Fue electa 
 Pi 'tor a en Relecta e la misma f 'h a,y 
 el dia Mier coles 12. 24 de Mar^o de 
 1 79 1, mesdt ano d 94, Fallecio d Ma^o 
 d 1806." 
 
 15. SAINT ANTHONY IN PRAYER BEFORE 
 
 THE CHILD JESUS. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, ^ feet 7 
 inches by 5 feet 6 inches. Signed ' ' Fr. 
 Miguel de Herrera, Angustino, 172^." 
 
 16. ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 2 feet 8 
 inches by 2 feet 2 inches. 
 
 17. A MEXICAN NUN. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 3 feet ^ 
 inches by 2 feet 5 inches. Infcription, 
 "The Lady Ine^ Topha, of the Heart of 
 Jesus, a professed religious in the new 
 convent of St. Theresa of Mexico. She pro- 
 fessed the 25th of June, in the year 1 756. ' ' 
 
 18. A BLACK VIRGIN AND CHILD. 
 
 Surrounded by Angels and Worshipers. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 5 feet 5 
 inches by 4 feet 5 inches. 
 
MEXICAN PAINTERS. 
 
 73 
 
 19. SAN RAFAEL. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si{e, 5 feet 4 
 inches by 5 feet 5 ^-4 inches. Signed 
 "Juan Joseph Jurado, 172'j.''^ 
 
 20. SAINT JOSEPH KNEELING TO THE 
 
 VIRGIN. 
 
 Angels in Background. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 2 feet 4 
 inches by 4 feet 2 inches. Signed "A. 
 Lope^." 
 
 21. HEAD OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 A RECENT Mexican Picture. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 2 feet 7 
 inches hy i foot 10 inches. 
 
 22. ANGEL WITH FLOWERS. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 5 feet 5 
 inches hy ^ feet ^ inches. 
 
 23. THE VIRGIN, WITH CHERUBS. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, ^ feet 8 
 inches by 2 feet 9 inches. 
 
 24. CHRIST BOUND, AND ST. PETER. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 2 feet 11 
 inches by 2 feet 2 inches. 
 
 25. ANGEL IN CLOUDS. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 5 feet 5 
 inches by ^ feet 3 inches. 
 
 26. SAN JUAN DE DIOS, WITH POME- 
 
 GRANATE SURMOUNTED BY CROWN 
 AND CROSS. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si:(e, 2 feet / inch 
 by I foot 4 inches. 
 
 27. CROWNED VIRGIN, WITH INFANT 
 
 JESUS GUARDED BY ANGELS. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, i foot 10 
 inches by i foot 6 inches. 
 
 28. CARMELITE NUN, IN THE HABIT OF 
 
 THE ORDER, CARRYING FOOD TO 
 A PRISONER. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 5 feet 10 
 inches by ^ feet 6 inches. {See companion 
 picture, No. 31.) 
 
 29. THE NATIVITY. 
 
 Angels hold a Scroll, with Inscription. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si{e, 4 feet j 
 inches by 1 foot 10 inches. Signed 
 ' ' Martine^. ' ' 
 
 30. HEAD OF CHRIST. 
 
 Modern Study, Mexican. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, i foot 8 
 inches by i foot j inches. 
 
 31. CARMELITE NUN, IN THE HABIT OF 
 
 THE ORDER, READING TO AN IN- 
 DIAN THROUGH THE BARS OF HIS 
 PRISON. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 5 feet 10 
 inches hy ^ feet 6 inches. {See companion 
 picture, No. 28.) 
 
 32. SAINT SEBASTIAN SUFFERING MAR- 
 TYRDOM. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, i foot 1 inch 
 by I foot 6 inches. Signed "Joseph de 
 Ibarra, fecit.'' 
 
 33. ADAM AND EVE DRIVEN FROM THE 
 
 GARDEN OF EDEN. 
 
 Painted on canvas. St^e, 2 feet 2 
 inches hy i foot 7 inches. 
 
 34. THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, i foot 7 
 inches hy 2 feet. Signed " S. P. De 
 Becerra." 
 
74 MEXICAN 
 
 35. SAN AGUSTIN. 
 
 A PICTURE BELONGING TO THE SPANISH 
 SCHOOL OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, 
 ASCRIBED TO BALTHASAR ECAHVE, THE 
 ELDER. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, i foot 7 
 inches by i foot 3 inches. 
 
 36. ANGELS BEARING ECCLESIASTICAL 
 
 INSIGNIA. 
 
 Portion of a large picture. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 2 feet 10 
 inches by 2 feet ^ inches. 
 
 37. ANGELS BEARING ECCLESIASTICAL 
 
 INSIGNIA. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 2 feet 10 
 inches by 2 feet 3 inches. Signed 
 " Francus Ants, a Vallejo, ft.'" 
 
 38. THE VIRGIN, AMONG CLOUDS, SUR- 
 
 ROUNDED BY CHERUBS. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si{e, 4 feet 11 
 inches by 5 feet 4 inches. 
 
 39- PORTRAITS OF TWO MEXICAN CHIL- 
 DREN OF THE HIGHER RANK. 
 Painted a Century or more ago, in the 
 Costume of the Period. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 2 feet 4 
 inches by 2 feet 4 inches. 
 
 40. THE GUARDIAN ANGEL. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 2 feet 8 
 inches by 3 feet 4 inches. 
 
 41. THE NATIVITY— THE WISE MEN OF 
 
 THE EAST. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, ^ feet by 3 
 feet 7 inches. Signed ' ' Andreas Lopei. ' ' 
 
 42. THE REVELATION TO SAINT JOSEPH. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 4 feet 8 
 inches by 3 feet 6 inches. Signed " Diego 
 Pere^, iy20." 
 
 PAINTERS. 
 
 43. SAN JOAQUIN. 
 
 Painted on copper. Si^e, i foot 4 1-2 
 inches by i foot i inch. 
 
 44. SANTA ANA. 
 
 Painted on copper. Si^e, i foot 41-2 
 inches by i foot 3-4 inch. 
 
 45. AN APOSTLE. 
 
 Painted on wood. Si^e, 5 inches by 
 3 3-4 inches. 
 
 46. SAINT GERTRUDE. 
 
 Painted on copper. Si^e, 4 inches by 
 J inches. 
 
 47. THE SAVIOUR. 
 
 Painted on copper. Si{e, 2 inches by 
 I 3-4 inches. 
 
 48. SAN RAFAEL. 
 
 Painted on copper. Si^e, 4 1-4 inches 
 by 6 inches. 
 
 49. SAINT PETER. 
 
 Painted on wood. Si^e, 5 inches by 
 3 3-4 inches. 
 
 50. S. PEDRO NOLASDO AND THE DI- 
 
 VINE PASTOR. 
 Double Picture. 
 
 Painted on copper. Si^e, 2 inches by 
 21-2 inches. 
 
 51. MATER DOLOROSA. 
 
 Painted on copper. Si^e, 11 1-4 inches 
 by 8 1-2 inches. Signed ' ' Nicholas En- 
 rique^, 1738." 
 
 52. SAINT CHRISTOPHER WITH THE IN- 
 
 FANT SAVIOUR. 
 
 Painted on copper. St^e, i foot 4 3-4 
 inches by i foot 3-4 inch. 
 
MEXICAN 
 
 PAINTERS. 
 
 53. SAN ANTONIO. 
 
 Painted on copper. Si{e, 6 3-4 inches 
 hy 5 inches. ^ 
 
 54. VIRGIN AND CHILD. 
 
 Painted on copper. Si{e, 11 inches ly 
 81-2 inches. Signed "Juan Rodrigue^ 
 Juare^, iyo2." 
 
 55. S. JUAN DE DIOS AND SAN CRIS- 
 
 TOVAL. 
 
 Double Picture. 
 
 Painted on copper. Si^e, 7 1-2 inches 
 Iv 5 1-2 inches. 
 
 56. SAINT JUAN NEPAMUSONA. 
 
 Painted on copper. Si^e, 111-2 inches 
 hy 8 1-2 inches. Signed " M En- 
 rique^,/.'" 
 
 57. THE DIVINE SHEPHERD. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 9 inches by 
 7 3-4 inches. 
 
 58. SAN FRANCISCO XAVIER. 
 
 Painted on copper. Si^e, 11-2 feet hy 
 10 inches. 
 
 59. OLD PORTRAIT OF A MEXICAN LADY 
 
 IN THE COSTUME OF THE PERIOD. 
 
 Painted on copper. Si^e, 61-4 inches 
 by 4 3-4 inches. 
 
 60. SAN AGUSTIN OVANDO. 
 
 Engraving on paper painted in oil. 
 Si{e, 61-2 inches by 4 3-4 inches. Dated 
 1784. 
 
 61. ESCUDO. 
 
 Worn by the Mexican Nuns, suspended 
 FROM the Neck. 
 
 Painted on copper. Si^e, diameter, 6 
 inches. 
 
 62. ESCUDO. 
 
 In Tortoise-shell Frame. Worn by the 
 Mexican Nuns suspended from the 
 Neck. See the Portrait of Inez de la 
 Cruz. 
 
 Diameter, 5 1-2 inches. 
 
 63. THE VIRGIN OF LOS DOLORES. 
 
 Engraving Painted in Oil. 
 10 3-4 inches high. 
 
 64. THE NATIVITY. 
 
 Basso Rilievo, in Colored Alabaster. 
 
 65. THE ASSUMPTION. 
 
 Basso Rilievo, in Colored Alabaster. 
 
 66. CHRIST BOUND. 
 
 Made in part of Silk Threads. From a 
 Mexican Convent. 
 
 67. SAINT JOSEPH AND THE INFANT 
 
 JESUS. 
 
 Made in part of Silk Threads. From a 
 Mexican Convent. 
 
 68. THE VIRGIN OF GUADALUPE. 
 
 Small Colored Engraving. 
 
 69. LET LITTLE CHILDREN COME UNTO 
 
 ME. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 11 1-4 inches 
 by 16 inches. Signed Miguel de H err era, 
 1778. 
 
 70. VIRGIN AND CHILD CROWNED. 
 
 Painted on copper. Si^e, 12 1-2 inches 
 by 16 inches. Mich. Cabrera, 1762. 
 
 71. A MARTYR. 
 
 Painted on copper. Si^e, 8 1-4 inches 
 by 5 3-4 inches. Signed Cabrera. 
 
 72. FEMALE HEAD WITH DOVE. 
 
 Painted on canvas. Si^e, 12 1-4 inches 
 by 16 inches. Signed Manl. Caro. 
 
76 MEXICAN 
 
 73. HOLY PERSONS. 
 
 Painted on copper. Si^e, lo inches hj/ 
 12 1-4 inches. 
 
 74. HEAD OF AN ECCLESIASTIC. 
 
 Painted on copper. Si^e, 10 1-4 inches 
 hy I) 1-2 inches. Signed Arellano, 1770. 
 
 75- THE ANGEL OF DEATH. 
 
 Painted on copper. Si{e, 61-4 inches hy 
 
 5 1-4 inches. 
 
 76. HEAD OF A SAINT. 
 
 Painted on panel. Si^e, 8 ^-4 inches by 
 
 6 inches. Signed Juan Correa. 
 
 77. SANTA ROSA DE LIMA. 
 
 The only born American Saint. Born at 
 Lima, Peru, in 1586; died, 1617; canon- 
 ized, 1671. 
 
 Painted on hammered copper. Si^^e, 
 12 1-2 inches by 1-2 inches. See pho- 
 togravure. 
 
 PAINTERS. 
 
 ITALIAN PICTURES. 
 
 A. I. THE ANNUNCIATION. 
 
 Painted on wood in tempera, with gold 
 background. Si^e, 75 ^-4 inches by 10 
 1-4 inches. From the Cardinal Bartolini 
 sale, Rome, January, 1888. Considered 
 an original Spinello Spinelt. 
 
 A. 2. THE ANNUNCIATION. 
 
 Painted on wood in tempera. Si^e, 
 10 3-4 inches by 7 3-4 inches. The 
 Florentine school of the Fifteenth Cent- 
 ury. With the arms of Cardinal Bar- 
 tolini carved and colored in the frame. 
 From the Bartolini sale, Rome, 1888. 
 
 A. 3. LOVE FORGING A DART. 
 
 On copper. Diameter, 4 3-4 inches. 
 A double picture. From the Giacomini 
 sale, Rome, 1888. 
 
 A. 4. SAINT AGNES. 
 
 Half figure painted on wood in tem- 
 pera, with gold background. School of 
 Giotto. From the Scalambrini sale, 
 Rome, 1888. Si^e, 10 1-2 inches by 1 3 
 1-2 inches. 
 
 THE END. 
 
GETTY CENTER LIBRARY 
 
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