Biographies of Artists

Rishel, Joseph J.; Stratton-Pruitt, Suzanne

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Biographies of Artists

Joseph J. Rishel (Editor), Suzanne Stratton-Pruitt (Editor)

The Arts in Latin America, 1492–1820

Biographies of Artists

Author

Joseph J. Rishel (Editor), Suzanne Stratton-Pruitt (Editor)

PublisherPhiladelphia Museum of Art

PublisherYale University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21340

Biographies of Artists

Friar Agostinho da Piedade

(Portugal c. 1580–1661 Salvador, Brazil)

Born in Portugal, Friar Agostinho da Piedade arrived in Brazil at a young age. He entered the Benedictine monastic order in Salvador, where his presence has been documented from 1619 to the year of his death, 1661. A chronicler from this order wrote a biography of Agostinho da Piedade sometime around 1700. The work describes the Portuguese monk as a highly virtuous man with a special devotion to the Virgin Mary. Curiously, no specific mention is made of his activities as a sculptor, which have only been identified in recent times as a result of the discovery of three terracotta images, all bearing the artist’s name and two the date of execution, an exceptional find among works from Brazil’s colonial period.

The first terracotta work, in terms of chronological order, is an imposing sculpture of Our Lady of Montserrat, which is presently in the collection of the Museum of Religious Art at the Federal University of Bahia in Salvador. A long inscription on the back of the sculpture reveals the artist’s name, the year it was executed (1636), and the name of the person who commissioned it. The second work, a devoutly introspective image of Saint Anne teaching the Virgin, dates from 1642, and is also part of the same collection. Finally, there is a sculpture of the Christ Child seated atop an image of a heart. This work, which is from the collection of the Benedictine Monastery in Olinda (Pernambuco), is undated.

These three documented works have provided a reference for other attributions, which include a beautiful image of Saint Monica, presently at the Museum of the Brazilian National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage in Salvador, and a series of reliquary busts created for the Benedictine order of Salvador.

We have no record of any works by this sculptor after 1642. According to the Benedictine chronicler, he abandoned his artistic career by “order of his superiors” so that he could devote his efforts to various administrative tasks, most notably as chaplain for the Grace Church in Salvador. Friar Agostinho da Piedade continued to exert a considerable influence, particularly among the disciples who assisted him in his workshop, the most noteworthy of which was Friar Agostinho de Jesus, who has left an important body of work at the Benedictine Monastery in São Paulo and at various churches in the coastal region of this Brazilian state.

Myriam A. Ribeiro de Oliveira

José de Alcíbar

(active Mexico, 1751–1803)

Although his reputation is now somewhat eclipsed by that of his teacher, Miguel Cabrera, José de Alcíbar ranks as one of the most accomplished artists in New Spain during the second half of the eighteenth century. Over the course of his long career, he participated in the most important artistic events of the era, including the examination and copying of the original cloth of the sacred image of the Virgin of Guadalupe (1751–52) and the publication of those findings in 1756. He also joined colleagues in founding a short-lived art academy in 1753–54 in Mexico City as well as in establishing the Royal Academy of San Carlos in 1781–83, where he served as a faculty member and director into the early 1800s. A prolific artist with a large workshop, Alcíbar left an oeuvre that documents the transition from the late baroque to neoclassicism.

Donna Pierce

O Aleijadinho (Antônio Francisco Lisboa)

(Vila Rica [now Ouro Prêto], Minas Gerais, Brazil c. 1738–1814 Vila Rica, Minas Gerais)

Antônio Francisco Lisboa, known as “O Aleijadinho” (The Little Cripple), was the son of a renowned architect and engineer, Manoel Francisco Lisboa, and an African slave. O Aleijadinho received his training at the local studios and workshops of Portuguese artists, who, like his father, had immigrated to Brazil during the early eighteenth century. O Aleijadinho died in his birthplace of Vila Rica in 1814 and was interred in the altar of Our Lady of Boa Morte, in the main church at Antonio Dias.

A man of vast talents, O Aleijadinho was commissioned to design some of the most important projects of the time, including the church of Saint Francis of Assisi of São João del Rei, in Ouro Prêto. He was also an immensely gifted decorative artist, creating facades and sculptures in the French and German rococo styles that prevailed during this period. His most important work of religious sculpture is the series of scenes depicting the Passion and Death of Christ, which he created for the chapels lining the road to the Sanctuary of Congonhas do Campo in Ouro Prêto. Comprising a total of sixty-four life-size scenes, this massive work includes the Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus Condemned, the Scourging, the Crowning with Thorns, the Road to Calvary, and the Crucifixion. Executed between 1796 and 1799, in collaboration with a number of assistants, each piece is characteristic of the artist’s late career, carried on despite the crippling deterioration of a debilitating disease. O Aleijadinho’s sculptures were typically adorned in draped garments with vividly defined pleating, and hair and beards were devised to serve deliberate ornamental effects, often including sinuously cascading locks. Powerful facial expressions were intended to impart a wide range of emotions.

In addition to the works created in Congonhas, only the Carmelite images of Saint Simon Stock and Saint John of the Cross at the Church of the Ordem Terceira do Carmo de Sahara, as well as an articulated image of Saint George at the Museu da Inconfidência, have been documented as works by this artist. All other works have been attributed to him on the basis of a characteristic style, which, owing to a number of peculiarities, can often be easily identified. The greatest difficulty lies in distinguishing O Aleijadinho’s pieces from those of his assistants or followers, who continued to create derivative works well into the nineteenth century.

Myriam A. Ribeiro de Oliveira

Serafín Antonio Almeida

(Guatire, Venezuela 1752–1822 Caracas, Venezuela)

Serafín Antonio Almeida was born in 1752 in the town of Guatire, located on the outskirts of Caracas. He was the son of Alberto Almeida and Juana Dionisia Casares Guevas. On December 8, 1779, he married María Rosa Agustina Guevara in the Caracas cathedral, and the union is recorded in the Register of Mixed Race and Slave Marriages. Little is known of the master’s life and training. His name appears in the Caracas census from 1781 onward. In the town census of 1797, he is described as a carpenter of mixed race and retired from the militia. In 1798 the Caracas cathedral’s ecclesiastic council decided to retire the master José Ramón Cardozo from the work being carried out on the choir loft, and the following year designated Almeida as the master responsible for the project. Almeida completed the choir loft and various pieces of furniture for the cathedral, all crafted in a neoclassical marquetry style, with many of the ornamental motifs reminiscent of English furniture from the end of the eighteenth century. The use of this type of marquetry was without precedent in the history of master carpenters in Venezuela, and it remains a mystery where and from whom Almeida learned his trade. The cabinetmaker remained active as a carpenter during the first two decades of the nineteenth century. His atelier produced the best examples in Caracas of neoclassical furniture made with exotic-wood marquetry.

Almeida was imprisoned on July 13, 1816, during the war of independence from Spain, on order of the Permanent War Council: a copy of a Caracas reprint of The Rights of Man had been found in the house of his lover, María Bárbara Penaloza. The accused defended themselves by claiming to have found the prohibited book on the street during the patriots’ flight from the city. The prosecutor found no grounds for proceeding with a trial and the suspects were freed on October 7 of the same year.

Serafín Antonio Almeida died intestate in Caracas on February 12, 1822, at the age of 69.

Jorge F. Rivas P.

The Arellanos

(active Mexico, late seventeenth-eighteenth century)

Various paintings produced in the Viceroyalty of New Spain are signed with the family name Arellano, preceded in only a few cases by the first name Manuel, which belongs to an artist whose activity can be dated by paintings and documents within the period 1691 to 1722. It remains in doubt whether the rest of the works are to be attributed to this painter or to another. Two other Arellanos, Antonio and José, were identified by Manuel Toussaint, but he cast doubt on the very existence of the latter. Due to the repeated use of the surname and the different pictorial personalities to which it might be attached, scholars have spoken of “the Arellanos” as if the term referred to a family. In the museum of Antequera in Spain there is a series of Mexican paintings that includes works by Juan Correa and three canvases signed “El mudo Arellano” (Arellano the Mute), who may be supposed to be one of the painters designated by Toussaint. In 1778 Juan de Viera wrote his Brief and Compendious Account of Mexico City, Court and Head of All Southern America, which includes an inventory of “ancient” and “modern” artists, and makes mention of a certain “Mute D. José.” If he could be identified with “Arellano the Mute,” this would confirm the existence of a José de Arellano. Nevertheless, the only figure who can be identified clearly is Manuel de Arellano, who is known from archival sources to have belonged to the guild of painters and gilders, and to have divided his activities between painting and the making of altarpieces. The existence of certain cityscapes, such as the nighttime view of The Plaza Mayor on Christmas Eve 1720 and the Conveyance of the Image and Inauguration of the Sanctuary of Guadalupe (cat. VI-19), suggests a painter who specialized in this type of picture. In the cartouche designated by the letter “A” on the latter, Joaquín Berchez has attempted to read the words: “a good man named J. a.,” and suggests that it refers to a self-portrait of the artist. If “Arellano the Mute” is indeed to be identified with the “Mute Don José” mentioned by Viera, then he might also be the author of this work. Nothing about these painters, however, can be affirmed with certainty. In his book on the Spanish painter Juan de Arellano (1614–1676), who specialized in the depiction of flowers, Alfonso Pérez Sánchez alludes to the family of artists from New Spain and their possible relation to his subject.

Juana Gutiérrez Haces

Manuel de Arellano

(active Mexico, c. 1691–1722)

Several members of the Arellano family were active as painters in New Spain during the transition from the seventeenth to the eighteenth century. Although most of their signed works bear only the surname Arellano, two painters have been identified from documents: Antonio, the father, and Manuel, his son. In addition, several paintings are signed “the mute Arellano,” and a certain José de Arellano, whom some scholars have conjectured may belong to the family dynasty, has yet to be documented in connection with any known painting. The relationship of these latter to Antonio and Manuel is still unclear. Manuel de Arellano was active from around 1691 until at least 1722. He is identified in documents as a “Master Painter” and contracted apprentices in 1703 and 1717. Several important and innovative paintings with the distinctive Arellano signature have recently been attributed to Manuel, including the Rendering of a Mulatto (cat. VI-47).

Donna Pierce

Gaspar Miguel de Berrío

(Potosí, Bolivia 1706–c. 1762 Potosí [?], Bolivia)

Gaspar Miguel de Berrío was a Creole born in Potosí in 1706. He is recorded as working between 1735 and 1762, mainly in the village of Puna, near his birthplace. A large number of his works are signed. The date of his death is unknown, but his last known signed canvas dates from 1762.

Berrío’s early work reveals the influence of Melchor Peréz Holguín, whom he must have known in Potosí. He gradually moved away from the latter’s style as he established his own, which, with its emphasis on gilding and highly idealized figures, was characteristic of indigenous painters and of the Cuzco school.

The first known work by the artist is a Saint Eustace, dated 1735. Following this are two canvases for the church of the Belén at Potosí (now lost), which dated to between 1736 and 1737 and depicted scenes from the childhood of Christ. Berrío’s painting of Saint Joseph with Other Saints in the Museo de la Casa Nacional de Moneda in Potosí can be considered his masterpiece. The painting is structured on two planes, an earthly plane and a gilded, terrestrial one. In the former are the saints, painted in the style of Holguín. This work was so successful that Berrío painted various replicas, such as the one in the Museo de Bellas Artes, Santiago de Chile, signed and dated 1744.

Another important work by Berrío is the Saint Nicholas of Bari, a particularly popular saint in Potosí as he was the patron of childbirths, which were risky and dangerous in a city located more than 13,500 feet (4,000 meters) above sea level. This canvas is in the Moneda Museum, which also houses his portrait of Charles III. Finally, the Museo Charcas in Sucre has a View of Potosí painted in 1758. It shows the city at the foot of the mountain and with the lakes and artificial river that the Spanish created for use in mining.

The last known painting by the artist depicts Saint John Nepomuk. Signed and dated in Potosí in 1762, it is now in the Museo de Arte Hispanoamericano Isaac Fernández Blanco, Buenos Aires.

Teresa Gisbert

Bernardo Bitti (Alosio Bernardo Democrito Giovanni Bitti)

(Camerino, The Marches, Italy 1548–1610 Lima, Peru)

Born in Camerino in the Marches in 1548, Bernardo Bitti would have been familiar with the work of Lorenzo Lotto and Federico Barocci as well as the writings of Giovanni Andrea Gilio, who argued for a pure painting style in line with the new thinking about religious art that came out of the Council of Trent. At age 20 he entered the Jesuit order, and three years later, in 1572, the Jesuit Diego de Bracamonte wrote from Peru to the General of the order, Everardo Mercurian, requesting Bitti’s services and calling him a “marvelous painter” (maravilloso pintor). As Bracamonte had been in Peru since the mid-1560s, Bitti must already have created a reputation for himself. Bracamonte, one of the first Jesuits in the New World and a man deeply concerned with education, was acutely aware of the power of paintings on the native populations, writing, according to an anonymous chronicler in 1600, that “exterior things do much for the Indians, specially paintings, in such a way that by those works of art they esteem and have a concept of the spiritual things.” Bitti joined the expedition in Rome and left for Peru from Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Spain, in October 1574, arriving at the port of Callao in May 1575. He spent his entire career working for churches of the Jesuit order in present-day Peru and Bolivia, leaving his principal canvases in Lima, Cuzco, Chuquisaca (now Sucre, Bolivia), Arequipa, and Huamanga (now Ayacucho, Peru). Judging from the varying quality of his work, Bitti must have had a large workshop. However, his only well-documented collaborator was Pedro de Vargas, who worked with him in Lima and Cuzco on the sculptures that adorned the large altarpieces, or retablos, that constituted the principal decoration of the Jesuit churches. Subject to the caprices of time, none of Bitti’s altarpieces have survived intact. The artist died in Lima in 1610.

Carl Brandon Strehlke

Miguel Cabrera

(Antequera [now Oaxaca] 1695–1768 Mexico City)

In his day, Miguel Cabrera was one of the most popular artists in New Spain, and he assumed mythical proportions following his death in 1768. Although he seems to have worked especially for the Colegiata de Guadalupe and had close connections with the Jesuits, he divided his time and the labors of his workshop among all the religious orders and members of the ruling class in New Spain. His style, which combines gentle draftsmanship with the refined atmosphere of the rococo, so marked his disciples and contemporaries that it is possible to speak of a school of Cabrera in the second half of the eighteenth century. He was one of the group of painters selected to perform a direct inspection of the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe in 1751, as a result of which he wrote his book Maravilla americana (American Marvel; 1756), with its blend of enlightened science, faith, and devotion. In 1752 he performed another inspection of the image and made three copies, one of which was sent to Pope Benedict XIV as part of the negotiations to have Our Lady of Guadalupe proclaimed patron of New Spain. The legendary account of the Pope’s remarks on the beauty of Cabrera’s copy of the image made the painter famous. Of special note are the paintings he did for the Jesuit college in Tepozotlán and the allegorical medallions of the Virgin that were formerly in the convento of Santo Domingo and are now in the cathedral in Mexico City. His paintings of castas, although they follow previously established models, have become paradigms of the genre, owing particularly to their combination of idealized human types and everyday naturalism. Cabrera painted both canvases and frescoes, and he is responsible for the design of the altarpieces in the church at Tepozotlán. A cartouche that accompanies his portrait of the Archbishop Rubio y Salinas reveals that Cabrera held the position of “painter to the chamber” of the prelate, the first appointment of its kind known in New Spain.

Juana Gutiérrez Haces

José Campeche

(San Juan, Puerto Rico 1751–1809 San Juan, Puerto Rico)

On December 23, 1751, José Campeche was born in San Juan to Tomás de Rivafrecha Campeche, a freed slave born in Puerto Rico who worked as a gilder, decorator, and painter as well as a musician at the cathedral, and to María Josefa Jordán Marqués, a native of the Canary Islands. Along with his brothers, Miguel and Ignacio, José was trained in his father’s studio, but he also studied at the Dominican convent in San Juan and became a member of the Third Order of that house. His career began modestly with small commissions, for example, to paint royal coats of arms for mail ships (1765). In 1772 he painted the posthumous portrait of a friar and several portraits of bishops of San Juan. His Saint Joseph and the Christ Child of that year is his earliest surviving painting (Museo de America, Madrid).

In 1775 a painter from Spain arrived in Puerto Rico who would exercise immense influence on Campeche, an influence that would make the artist outstanding among his contemporaries in Latin America. Luis Paret y Alcázar (1746–1799), a court painter of great refinement and delicacy, was exiled to Puerto Rico by the Council of Castile, having been accused of assisting Don Luis de Borbón, brother of King Charles III, in his love affairs. Paret, who had studied at the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid and spent 1763–66 in Rome, brought a very high style with him to the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico, and Campeche was his avid follower until Paret was allowed to return to Spain four years later. Suddenly, then, as a result of this quirk of fate, there was in Puerto Rico a native-born, mestizo painter who was a master, and who continued to mature as an artist long after Paret’s departure.

Campeche’s first masterpiece may be Lady on Horseback, signed and dated 1785 (Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico), a very small painting on panel that is delicious in its refinement of brushwork and rococo palette. Campeche went on to paint many religious subjects and a number of portraits that record—with careful attention to details of furnishings and clothing—Puerto Rican society in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. José Campeche died on November 7, 1809, in the house he had lived in since birth, having never left his native island.

Suzanne Stratton-Pruitt

Francisco José Cardozo

(born Caracas, Venezuela; active Caracas, 1768–1818)

Francisco José Cardozo was born in Caracas to cabinetmaker Antonio José Cardozo and Manuela Antonia Solórzano. He married María Alejandra Reyes Gresnier in the same city, and had two daughters with her: María de la Merced Elena and Juana Josefa del Rosario. Like many other artisans at that time, Cardozo came from a mixed-race background.

He spent his career as cabinetmaker in his native city, where he received commissions for the cathedral and other important churches. The first document that mentions his name is dated July 20, 1768, when he was entrusted with decorating the door to the burial vault in the chapel of San Pedro in the Caracas cathedral. During his early years as a master carpenter, he was hired to repair and build furniture. Among the altarpieces that he created in later years, these stand out: the Santo Sepulcro of Caracas cathedral in 1791, the Santísima Trinidad for the chapel of the Venerable Orden Tercera de San Francisco in 1798, and the principal altarpiece of the parish church of Nuestra Señora de Altagracia in 1817. In 1789 he collaborated with cabinetmakers Domingo José Antonio Gutiérrez and Antonio José Limardo in the construction of the catafalque for King Charles Ill’s funeral, an expensive piece that was subsequently decorated by master painter Antonio José Landaeta. Cardozo drew up his will in Caracas on September 15, 1818. His name is mentioned for the last time in the newspaper Gaceta de Caracas on August 16, 1820.

Jorge F. Rivas P.

Caspicara (Manuel Chili)

(Quito, Ecuador 1723–1796 Quito, Ecuador)

The indigenous sculptor Manuel Chili, known as “El Caspicara” for his pockmarked face, was active in Quito, Ecuador, during the second half of the eighteenth century. Caspicara stands out among the few known sculptors associated with the Escuela Quitena (Quito School), a contemporary term that describes the painting and sculpture produced by workshops of predominantly indigenous and mestizo artists throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the Audiencia of Quito. The Escuela Quitena is generally considered the greatest artistic achievement of Ecuador’s colonial era. An undated sculpture of the Christ Child Sleeping with the artist’s name carved into the reverse is Caspicara’s only known signed work; however, his distinctive style and technique has led Ecuadorian art historians to generate a large corpus of works attributed to the sculptor.

Caspicara is known for the high degree of realism in his works, his delicate treatment of human proportions, and the intense emotionality and theatricality of his carvings. Unlike many Quiteño sculptors before him, Caspicara is renowned for his mastery of the proportions of the human body. Although colonial religious conservativeness deterred the depiction of the nude or partially nude body, Caspicara treated this theme frequently, often in the form of the Resurrected or Crucified Christ. In addition, his work is marked by his realistic treatment of flesh tones, often with a highly polished patina influenced by Asian porcelain statuettes. Caspicara’s artistic influences were diverse, and he drew inspiration from secular works in both technique and subject matter. In addition, he frequently introduced Italian models into his work.

The majority of Caspicara’s commissions came from the religious orders and religious confraternities in Quito and other cities in present-day Ecuador and Colombia. Caspicara’s artistic range appears to have been wide: large- and small-scale works, sculptures in the round, dressed sculptures, and relief sculptures have all been attributed to the artist. While Caspicara’s preferred medium was wood, a few marble sculptures have also been attributed to him. His most important works are today preserved in Quito. These include the Four Virtues, a group of Angels and the Holy Shroud in the cathedral, the Apostles series in the church of San Francisco, and sculptures of the Virgin of Carmen and Saint Joseph in the Franciscan museum. In addition, several works attributed to Caspicara were exported to present-day Colombia during the colonial period, and are today located in Bogotá and Medellín.

Andrea Lepage

Juan Correa

(Mexico City c. 1646–1716 Mexico)

Juan Correa was born to a mixed-race family. His grandfather came from Albacete in Spain, and his grandmother, Juana María, was from Cádiz. One child from this marriage, also named Juan Correa, was a distinguished surgeon and barber, renowned for having performed the first dissection in Mexico. He was the father of Juan Correa the painter (active 1731–60), who was the third to bear the same name. The artist married Ursula de Moya, and they had four children: Diego, a master painter and his father’s principal assistant; Francisco, who joined a religious order in Manila; Felipa, who married; and Miguel, a journeyman painter when Juan Correa died in 1716.

A register of Juan Correa’s works boasts close to 400 entries. He executed a number of works for the cathedral of Mexico City, including an Assumption for the sacristy (1689) and a Coronation of the Virgin (1689), an Entry into Jerusalem (1691), and a Vision of the Apocalypse (since destroyed). Some of Correa’s works made their way to Spain, where there is a group of ten paintings on the Life of the Virgin in the Museo Municipal in Antequera and a Virgin of Guadalupe (1704) in the church of San Nicolás in Seville. Among his secular works are screens, including one with representations of the four continents and of the Meeting Between Cortés and Moctezuma (Banco Nacional de Mexico, Mexico City). Correa is thought to have been the teacher of the artists Juan Rodríguez Juárez and José de Ibarra, among others.

Elisa Vargaslugo

Nicolás Correa

(Mexico c. 1670/75–?)

Nicolás Correa was a member of one of the most active families of painters in Mexico City during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The son of Tomasa Gómez and José Correa, a noted gilder and painter, he was also the nephew of Juan Correa, the most renowned artist in the family. Nicolás is not widely known because there are few paintings bearing his signature that have survived to this day. All of these signed works date from the 1690s, although documentation points to activity as late as 1723 in works evidently commissioned by the cathedral of Mexico City. Despite the small number of paintings attributed to him, Nicolás Correa is significant because he is one of only two artists primarily known as painters to have executed several paintings in the enconchado technique exclusive to colonial Mexico, as well as in oil on canvas or wood. The other painter is Antonio de Santander, the whereabouts of whose only attributed work in this medium, the Virgin of Balvanera, is presently unknown.

Nicolás Correa’s earliest known work is a painting of Saint Rose of Lima, now in the collection of the Museo Nacional de Arte in Mexico City. This oil on canvas, signed and dated 1691, shows a mature, relaxed style and is the work of a painter immersed in the traditions of late seventeenth-century Mexico. Correa appears to have embarked on the new technique of enconchado by 1693, when he produced a signed piece using this technique, The Wedding at Cana (cat. I-13). In 1694 the artist created his own singular version of the Holy Family (private collection), which portrays an enthroned Mary and Saint Anne straddling the Christ Child and flanked by Joseph and Saint Joachim in the interior of a what appears to be a basilica. The last work the artist executed in enconchado, its present whereabouts unknown, depicts Christ on the Road to Calvary and might have formed part of a series on the Life of Christ, given its similarity to an anonymous group of twenty-four paintings on wood presently in the collection of the Museo de America, Madrid.

The repertoire of works signed by Nicolás Correa ends in 1696 with an oil panel representing the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes. Here various elements—most evident in the organization of the composition and in the treatment of subjects—recall the artist’s works in enconchado.

María Concepción García Sáiz

Baltasar de Echave Ibía (or de León)

(Mexico City c. 1585/c. 1604–1644 Mexico City)

Baltasar de Echave Ibía was a Mexican painter active in the second quarter of the seventeenth century. Manuel Toussaint’s research has now established that there were three rather than two painters with the name Echave, resolving previous confusion. Toussaint proposed that these three artists be known by their surnames of Orio, Ibía, and Rioja.

Until recently, it was thought that Echave Ibía was born in 1585 and was the son of the famous painter of Basque origin, Echave Orio. However, it cannot be ruled out that he was the son and not the brother of the painter Manuel de Echave, son of Echave Orio. If this were the case, he would have been born around 1604, the date when Manuel married Jerónima de León. Further information is required to clarify this issue and to establish the family relations between these individuals. What is certain is that Echave Ibía married Ana de Rioja in 1623 and was the father of five children, among them the painter Baltasar de Echave Rioja.

Echave Ibía is an interesting artist, weaker and less solemn but more expressive than Echave Orio (his father or grandfather). This allows us to distinguish his work, which has a looser and less detailed finish. While some of his paintings were executed on large canvases, Echave Ibía primarily favored small-format works on copper panels, undoubtedly influenced by works of the Flemish school that were arriving in the New World in large quantities in this period. The Flemish influence would also explain Echave Ibía’s preference for including landscape backgrounds, executed in various shades of blue in his religious paintings. This preference led to Toussaint’s nickname for the artist, el Echave de los azules. The artist died in 1644.

Rogelio Ruiz Gomar

Baltasar de Echave Rioja

(Mexico City 1632–1682 Mexico City)

The painter Baltasar de Echave Rioja, son of the Mexican painter Baltasar de Echave Ibía and of Ana de Rioja, was active in the second half of the seventeenth century. He was born in Mexico City in 1632 and died there in 1682 at the age of 50. He was the last of the brilliant dynasty of painters in New Spain known as “los Echave,” begun by his grandfather (or possibly great-grandfather) Baltasar de Echave Orio.

Echave de Rioja must have begun his training with his father, but as the latter died in 1644, when Echave Rioja was just 12, he presumably continued his studies with another artist. As is the case for José Juárez and Pedro Ramírez, it has been suggested that Echave Rioja may have been a student of the Sevillian artist Sebastián López de Arteaga, who arrived in Mexico around 1640. It seems more likely, however, that he completed his studies in the studio of José Juárez, as he is known to have been present in that workshop, possibly as a pupil. He has been considered the last important representative of tenebrist painting in New Spain, but in fact, with the exception of two or three works, his painting is generally characterized by a taste for uniform lighting and the use of brilliant color.

Aside from a certain weakness in the drawing and the construction of his figures, Echave Rioja was able to imbue his compositions with a convincingly dramatic tone, with expressive faces and gestures. His style appears to herald the final stage of seventeenth-century painting in New Spain, in particular the work of the famed Cristóbal de Villalpando, recently suggested to have been his pupil.

Echave Rioja’s first known work is an Adoration of the Magi (1659; Denver Art Museum), and The Washing of the Feet and The Last Supper are his last known compositions (1680; Izucar, State of Morelos, Mexico). A member of the first generation to be commissioned with the production of large-scale canvases for the walls of sacristies, chapels, choirs, and cloisters, Echave Rioja is known to be the author of the enormous paintings that decorate the sacristy of the cathedral of Puebla (1657). He may also have been responsible for various arch-topped compositions in a number of chapels in the cathedral of Mexico City.

Rogelio Ruiz Gomar

Domingo Gutiérrez

(La Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands 1709–1793 Caracas, Venezuela)

Domingo Gutiérrez was born in La Laguna on Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands. His parents were Juan Gutiérrez and María Francisca Curvelo. He came to the American continent early in the eighteenth century and settled in Caracas, where in 1730 he married Clara Josefa Leal, a woman born in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. They had eight children. Documents show that he was active as a carpenter as of 1732. Undoubtedly the most distinguished master carpenter of his time, he counted among his clientele the local aristocracy, the city council, and the cathedral, as well as other churches and monasteries in the city. His creative output ranged from furniture to the most important altarpiece made in Caracas in the eighteenth century, the altarpiece for the Venerable Orden Tercera de San Francisco, which was built between 1765 and 1767. The exorbitant price of this piece caused a protracted lawsuit between the cabinetmaker and the minister of the Orden Tercera, which was later settled out of court. The artist Juan Pedro López, with whom the master maintained a close collaboration throughout his entire life, provided the gilding and paintings that completed the piece.

Domingo Gutiérrez breathed new life into Venezuela’s formal repertoire by introducing the language of rococo to local cabinetmaking. His extraordinary carving skills, coupled with his talent as a designer, set him above his contemporaries. Subsequent generations of cabinetmakers were influenced by his style, and the imprint of his work is evident in the production of such masters as Francisco José Cardozo, José Rafael Chacón, and Eugenio Juan Guzman, among others. Gutiérrez died in Caracas in April 1793.

Jorge F. Rivas P.

Joaquín Gutiérrez

(Santa Fé de Bogotá, Colombia c. 1715–c. 1805 Popayán [?], Colombia)

Joaquín Gutiérrez lived and worked in Santa Fé de Bogotá, producing portraits, miniatures, and religious paintings. Although the precise dates of his birth and death are unknown, his activity over the greater part of the century can be traced through his few signed works and his role as appraiser (tasador) of the property of the viceroy Solis Folch de Cardona (1716–1762), who was named to the position in 1753.

Following the reestablishment of the Viceroyalty of New Granada in 1739 (first created in 1717), the capital city experienced increasing prosperity and urbanization. A new clientele of high-ranking colonial governors and the upper social classes, along with church officials, began to commission portraiture. Although Gutiérrez was active as a religious painter and miniaturist, he stands out first and foremost as a portraitist who captured the luxurious apparel and poised elegance of New Granada’s dignitaries and high society. His work is marked by a rather archaic style of flat planes of color inside a closed outline that departs from the freer brushwork of New Granada’s seventeenth-century painters. Gutiérrez is considered the principal forerunner of the French rococo artistic movement in New Granada. Rococo elements are evident in his highly decorative style, his introduction of a warmer palette, and his secular themes.

Gutiérrez studied in the workshop of Nicolás Banderas, a pupil or follower of Gregorio Vàsquez de Arce y Ceballos. No extant works are known from the workshop of Banderas, who was also the teacher of the Bogotá painter Bernabé de Posadas. The direct imitation of Vàsquez’s compositions and characteristic types is apparent in some of the close to eighty religious works attributed to Gutiérrez, such as his Virgin and Child (Museo de Arte Colonial, Bogotá). Gutiérrez supplants the seventeenth-century master’s strong chiaroscuro in favor of a more two-dimensional approach and vibrant colors, as in his Holy Family with Saint John the Baptist and Saint Augustin (Museo del Chicó, Sociedad de Mejoras y Ornato, Bogotá) or Saint Theresa as Good Shepherdess (Carmelite private collection). A painting of Saint Joseph and the Christ Child attributed to Gutiérrez (private collection) is nearly an exact copy of a Vasquez drawing of the Christ Child (Museo de Arte Colonial, Bogotá), suggesting that Gutiérrez might have worked directly from Vasquez’s compositions on occasion. Gutiérrez also portrayed Dona Juana Nepomucena María Hilaria de Jesús Lozano de Peralta y Varaes (c. 1775) and the historian José Manuel Groot as a child (1809; private collection).

A contract dated February 1, 1750, documents Gutiérrez’s first commission, a series of twenty-six paintings for the church of San Juan de Dios in Bogotá, of which six still exist. This series devoted to the life of the church’s name saint (Saint John of God) was commissioned by Friar Juan Antonio Guzman. In this same decade, Gutiérrez produced a few portraits of university doctoral candidates. A variation of donante (donor) portraiture, this subject matter seems to have been particular to New Granada. Commissioned to mark the successful defense of a thesis, such paintings represent the scholar alongside his patron saint, who has guided his education, and include a summary of the subject of his thesis. An example of this portrait type is Gutiérrez’s portrayal of the laureate Francisco Antonio Moreno, a graduate of what is now the Javeriana University, Bogotá (1752; Museo de Arte Colonial, Bogotá).

Gutiérrez’s portraits of the marquises of San Jorge are the only signed and dated works by this painter, who portrayed at least twelve of New Granada’s viceroys and is often labeled “the painter of the viceroys.” His pendant portraits of the Marquises of San Jorge (1775; Museo de Arte Colonial, Bogotá) and the series of New Granadan viceroys (c. 1780; Museo de Arte Colonial, Bogotá) show the artist as an accomplished portraitist of Santa Fé high society. At the end of the 1780s, Gutiérrez moved to Popayán with his wife, Doña Josefa Illera.

Alicia Lubowski

Melchor Pérez Holguín

(Cochabamba, Bolivia c. 1665–after 1732 Potosí, Bolivia)

Melchor Pérez Holguín was born in Cochabamba around 1665 and died after 1732. In 1693 he found work in Potosí and went on to become the most highly regarded painter of his day throughout the Audiência of Charcas. His style shows a characteristic treatment of the figures, with accentuated facial features. Holguín painted saints, mystics, and ascetics who reflected the prevailing baroque spirituality of the time. His art was widely imitated by painters such as Gaspar Miguel de Berrío, Nicolás Ecoz, and Joaquín Carabai, who also worked in Potosí.

In his early years Holguín painted saints such as Pedro de Alcántara, famous for his penitence, and Juan de Dios, who established a network of hospitals and was considered an example of Christian charity. His palette was relatively monochromatic then, but around the end of the century it became brighter. At this time Holguín painted a large composition of the Last Judgement in the church of San Lorenzo in Potosí, which included scenes of the Glory and of Hell. For the same church he also painted an allegorical composition, The Ship of the Church. Both works are now in the Museo de San Francisco in Potosí. In 1710 he sent works to the Merced in Chuquisaca (present-day Sucre).

Holguín signed a large number of his works and included his own portrait in some of them, most famously in The Entry of the Viceroy Diego Mordilo Rubio de Auñón into Potosí (Museo de America, Madrid), painted in 1716. That canvas, which includes women with their female slaves watching the procession from balconies, and Andeans and mestizos talking in the street, provides a record of contemporary customs. In the upper part are two views of the Plaza Mayor, one of a nighttime masquerade procession. Along with other groups of costumed figures the procession includes Spanish monarchs, Incas, and Ethiopians preceded by their king. Later, Holguín painted more than one set of the Four Evangelists, of which the best is dated 1724. Inspired by prints of the Flemish engraver Johan Wierix (1549–c. 1618), which were in turn based on drawings by Maarten de Vos (1532–1603), these are now in the Museo de la Casa Nacional de Moneda, Potosí (cats. V1–87–V1–90). Also notable are the Evangelists in the Museo Nacional de Arte, La Paz. Holguín also painted scenes from the childhood of Christ, such as the Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Museo Nacional de Arte, La Paz).

Holguín’s art was extremely influential, and his works continued to be copied into the nineteenth century. He is referred to in documents with the nickname of the “Golden Brush” (Brocha de Oro).

Teresa Gisbert

José Juárez

(Mexico City 1617–1661 Mexico City)

José Juárez is considered the most important representative of Mexican baroque painting and among the best, if not the best, of all the painters born in Mexico during the viceregal period. Son of the renowned painter Luis Juárez and of Elena Jáuregui (or López de Vergara), Juárez was born in Mexico City, where he was baptized on July 9, 1617. In 1641 he married Isabel de Contreras, with whom he had five children, three daughters and two sons. His second son was born after the artist’s death, when his other son was just 7. The exact date of Juárez’s death is not known, but it must have been shortly after the signing of his will on December 22, 1661.

Juárez probably trained in his father’s studio, but he soon abandoned the pleasing, somewhat archaic manner acquired there and adopted a more austere and modern style. This was the result of the influence of art arriving from Spain, and can be compared with the vigorous manner of Francisco de Zurbarán and his circle, with its more solidly modeled volumes, realistic figures and drapery, and greater emphasis on light and shade.

While it has been said that Juárez and other important painters of the time, such as Pedro Ramírez and Baltasar de Echave Rioja, were pupils of the Sevillian painter Sebastián López de Arteaga, who arrived in Mexico around 1640, by this point Juárez was already head of the studio inherited from his father. It would appear that Juárez was the teacher of a number of artists of the following generation, including Ramírez and Echave Rioja as well as Antonio Rodríguez, the latter his son-in-law.

Juárez’s extant output is relatively small but of notably high quality. An artist of undoubted talent and ability, he was able to combine the influence of local tradition with echoes of Zurbarán and Peter Paul Rubens. In addition to the religious works for which he is known, he painted some portraits. These include depictions of members of the family of a viceroy, the Count of Banos, which the viceroy took with him on his return to Spain without having paid for them, resulting in a lawsuit initiated by Juárez’s widow.

Rogelio Ruiz Gomar

Pedro Laboria

(Sanificar de Barrameda, Spain c. 1700–after 1764 Santa Fé de Bogotá [?], Colombia)

Pedro Laboria was born sometime around 1700 in Sanificar de Barrameda, Spain. In 1729 he was commissioned by the Jesuits of Bogotá to create an image of Saint Joachim, and in 1738 he traveled to that city, where he remained for many years.

In 1739 the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in Bogotá hired Laboria to create a sculpture of the dying Saint Francis Xavier. The signed and dated piece adorns the city’s church of San Ignacio. Laboria later began work for the same church on a sculpture entitled The Rapture of Saint Ignatius, which is considered the most important work of baroque sculpture in Colombia, and from which we get much of our information on this artist. The piece is signed “Petrus Laboria in urbe / S. Lucae Barrameda / natus Faciebat Santa Fidei /Anno MDCCXLIX” (Pedro Laboria, born in Sanificar de Barrameda, created this work in Santa Fé [Bogotá] in 1749). Laboria also completed an image of Saint Francis Borgia as well as a series of angels for this same church.

In 1740 Judge José Quintana paid the artist 355 gold pesos for an image of Saint Barbara for the church bearing that saint’s name in Bogotá. For the church of San Juan de Dios (Saint John of God), Laboria created a series of sculptures of Saint Francis of Paula, Saint Teresa, and Saint Brigid. In 1746 he was commissioned by the Carmelite order to create a sculpture of Saint Joachim and the child Mary. He also executed an image of Saint Joachim and Saint Anne for the Dominicans in Bogotá. Other noted works by Laboria include Saint Joseph and the Christ Child and Saint John Nepomucene, part of the collection at the cathedral in Santa Fé de Bogotá, and Saint Anthony with the Christ Child, which adorned the church of San Ignacio in Tunja.

It is not known whether Laboria established a family in Bogotá, and there is no indication that he left any workshop or followers. The exact date of his death is also unknown. It is possible that the artist returned to Spain, since there is mention there of a sculptor named Pedro Laboria. An image of La Virgen del Patrocinio (Our Lady of Perpetual Succor), executed in 1764 for the parish church of San Antonio de Padua, is attributed to this artist.

Laboria is considered one of the major baroque artists of New Granada. His work is truly exceptional for its great physical beauty, intense dynamism, expression of disparate emotions, and the extraordinary sense of spiritual strength that is evoked in each of his representations. Semimatte finishes are characteristic in the artist’s treatment of faces and hands, which are enhanced by the masterful use of polychromy on attire and drapery.

Marta Fajardo de Rueda

The Lagartos

Luis Lagarto (Andalusia, Spain 1556–after 1619 Mexico City)

Luis de la Vega Lagarto (Mexico City 1586–after 1631)

Andrés Lagarto (Mexico City 1589–1666/67)

Francisco Lagarto (Mexico City 1591–after 1638)

The earliest mentions we have of Luis Lagarto in Mexico City are all from the year 1586: in March, identified as “painter,” he was a witness for Juan Salcedo de Espinoza, a carpenter at the cathedral; in May he rented a shop; in August his son Luis was born; in September he was named by the viceroy Marqués de Villamanrique as examiner of all who would teach reading and writing in New Spain. In the case involving Salcedo, Lagarto declared himself to be 30 years old. By 1592, Luis and his wife Ana de Paz had five more children, and from 1592 to 1594 a series of documents associates Lagarto and the carpenter Salcedo with the preparation of the Corpus Christi festivities in Mexico City. In 1600 Lagarto was contracted for the decoration of the initials of choir books for the cathedral of Puebla, a task he finished in 1611, when he indicated his intention of returning to Mexico City, where he was living in 1612. While in Puebla, in 1603, he illuminated a book of emblems, and in 1606 he received payment as a composer of songs for the cathedral choir. His dated, independent paintings on vellum are all from a ten-year period, between 1609 and 1619.

A net of probabilities has been woven around these dates and facts to create a fuller story. Guillermo Tovar de Teresa suggests that Luis was the son of Juan Lagarto de Castro, “teacher of writing and counting” in Granada, and of a woman from Seville whose last name was Nuñez de la Vega. Furthermore, he may have been a pupil of Lázaro de Velasco, son of the Italian painter Jacopo Fiorentino (1476–1534), who arrived in Granada in 1520. Lázaro was illuminator of the choir books of the Granada cathedral between 1550 and 1583. Tovar also, and correctly, associates the work of Luis Lagarto with illuminated books in Seville. Luis may have traveled to New Spain with the viceroy Villamanrique. Certainly, he was at the Mexico City cathedral during the 1580s, and some of the illuminated capitals of one choir book preserved there are attributable to him. Recent research seems to indicate that Lagarto also decorated initials in the choir books of the cathedral of Oaxaca.

Three of Luis Lagarto’s sons were illuminators and must have learned their trade from their father: Luis de la Vega Lagarto, Andrés, and Francisco. Luis married Leonor Rangel, with whom he had at least seven children, born between 1617 and 1626. A signed Immaculate Conception is dated 1631, and Tovar attributes to him a miniature of 1637. The earliest works by Andrés, whose godfather was Diego de Aguilera, master architect of the Mexico City cathedral, are dated 1620 in Puebla. In 1638 he was living in Mexico City, where in 1649 he was contracted for a now lost altarpiece. Francisco is known to have made ten maps in 1637.

Clara Bargellini

Bernardo de Legarda

(Quito, Ecuador, end of the seventeenth century–1773 Quito, Ecuador)

The Ecuadorian artist Bernardo de Legarda, a pupil of José Olmos, operated a workshop in Quito across from the Franciscan monastery for which he did much of his work. In addition to creating carved wooden sculptures and paintings, he also worked as a goldsmith and silversmith and as a printer and gunsmith. The first documentation of his artistic activity is from 1731, when he made initial retouches to an image of Saint Luke. In 1734 he carved the image of the Virgen Apocalíptica (Virgin of the Apocalypse)—the famous “Virgin of Quito”—and from 1734 to 1737 he worked on the lateral altarpieces in the chapel of the Sagrario in the church of El Sagrario in Quito. During these years he was also commissioned with the carving and assemblage of the main altarpiece at the church of La Merced. He returned to El Sagrario between 1742 and 1746 to install new stained glass windows in the chapel of the Santísimo (the Most Holy One). In 1745 he collaborated in the work at the chapel of Nuestra Señora del Rosario (Our Lady of the Rosary), and between 1745 and 1748 he carved the altarpiece at the church of La Merced. Bernardo was commissioned in 1769 to work on the gilding of the altarpiece at the Jesuit church. Years later he created the screen for El Sagrario. In 1770 he was commissioned by the Augustinians to work on a project similar to the one he completed at El Sagrario, which he was never able to complete. He died in Quito in 1773.

Adriana Pacheco Bustillo

Andrés López

(Mexican, c. 1740–1811)

The Mexican painter Andrés López began his lengthy career in 1763, the date of his first known work—a Virgin of the Dawn in La Profesa, Mexico City—and concluded it in 1811, the year of his death. His sizable output consists mostly of religious paintings, as well as some portraits and allegorical works.

López seems to have belonged to a family of painters, as he is believed to have been the son of Carlos Clemente López, who worked around the middle of the eighteenth century, and brother of Cristóbal López. With the latter he painted a number of enormous but rather indifferent paintings on the Passion of Christ in the church at Aguascalientes, Mexico.

López was involved in the foundation of the Academia de San Carlos (1783–85) along with other painters from the Viceroyalty of New Spain, such as José de Alcíbar, Rafael Joaquín Gutiérrez, and Juan de Sáenz Mariano Vazquez. In particular, he worked with Antonio Jeronimo Gil on the correction of pupils’ work. López’s name headed the census of artists with studios in Mexico City at this date. He is recorded as living in the city, with a workshop on Calle de Las Moras.

Along with a number of the above-mentioned artists, López was asked by Dr. Ignacio de Bartolache to examine the original and widely venerated image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and to endorse the short text written by Bartolache on the work (Manifesto satisfactory y opúsculo Quadalupino). In addition, he was commissioned to execute a copy of the image using the same materials and techniques as the original in order to observe whether it resisted aging in the same manner. This did not prove to be the case, however, as the work deteriorated in a short space of time.

Among López’s extensive oeuvre are the two large canvases on either side of the high altar of the church in the convent of La Enseñanza, Mexico City, the paintings in the sacristy of the chapel of Loreto in the church of the Oratorio in San Miguel de Allende, and a small painting of The Ages of Man and three delicate works on copper panels in the Museo Nacional del Virreinato in Tepotzotlán, Mexico.

Rogelio Ruiz Gomar

Juan Pedro López

(Caracas, Venezuela 1724–1787 Caracas, Venezuela)

Juan Pedro López was born in Caracas on July 23, 1724, a legitimate son of José Antonio López González and Maria Domínguez, both natives of Tacoronte, Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. In 1750 he married Juana Antonia de la Cruz Delgado, also from Tacoronte, in the Caracas cathedral. The couple had twelve children.

No documents have come to light regarding the painter’s training, but it is quite possible that he became an apprentice at an early age in the workshop of one of the Canary Island masters who were established in the city at the time, perhaps working under Domingo Baupte Arvelo y Castro, active in Caracas between 1737 and 1747, or Nicolás González de Abreu, active in the same city between 1746 and 1760. The painter maintained close ties with the Canary Islands immigrant community throughout his life, as evidenced by his lengthy collaboration with the cabinetmaker Domingo Gutiérrez.

In addition to working as a painter, López was a sculptor and gilder. His professional career began in the 1750s and lasted virtually until his death in August of 1787. Juan Pedro López is considered the most important Venezuelan painter of the second half of the eighteenth century. The quality of his work and his vast creative output are testaments to his stature. He maintained a significant client list over the course of his career, receiving important commissions to create works for the cathedral as well as other churches and religious institutions in the city.

Imbued with the joyfulness of rococo and charged with soft, luminous tonalities, López’s paintings evolved from the rigid, repetitive, and formulaic expression of his early works as a professional painter into the greater spontaneity and looser paint handling of his mature works. Like most Latin American painters of the colonial period, López often drew his inspiration and compositional models from Flemish and Italian engravings. The influence of certain New Spanish masters, particularly Miguel Cabrera, whose work was present in numerous churches and private collections in eighteenth-century Caracas, is also evident in his work. Records list some two hundred works attributed to Juan Pedro López.

Jorge F. Rivas P.

Sebastián López de Arteaga

(Seville, Spain 1610–1652 Mexico City)

Sebastián López de Arteaga was born in Seville on March 15, 1610, son of a father of the same name and of Inés de los Reyes. His brother, Bartolomé, was an engraver, which suggests a family ambience of artistic activities, but nothing is known of Sebastián’s specific training. He was examined as a painter on April 19, 1630. In 1638 he was in Cádiz, and he is thought to have arrived in New Spain in 1640. By 1642 he was working in Mexico City, where he had been contracted to execute thirteen paintings of the Prometheus myth for an archway constructed to celebrate the entry of the viceroy García Sarmiento de Sotomayor y Luna, Count of Salvatierra.

López de Arteaga was evidently close to those wielding power in Mexico City, since in 1643 he executed a painting of the Crucifixion (Museo de la Basílica de Guadalupe, Mexico City) that he signed as “notary of the Holy Office.” He used the same formula in signing his famous Incredulity of Saint Thomas (Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico City). His use of the title “inventor” as well in these two works indicates his desire to affirm his status as a learned painter. Another dated work is the 1650 Stigmatization of Saint Francis (Museo de la Basílica de Guadalupe, Mexico City). In addition to a handful of other religious compositions, a portrait of Francisco Manso y Zúñiga, archbishop of Mexico City, has been preserved, and there is documentary evidence of other portraits. On June 13, 1652, feeling himself in danger of death from wounds received in a quarrel, López de Arteaga drew up his will. His wife, Juana, and a painter by the name of Francisco Honorio were to be his executors; his heirs were two daughters, Feliciana and Dorotea. By December he was dead.

In the past, López de Arteaga was considered to have been a disciple of Zurbarán, but Rogelio Ruiz Gomar has pointed to the fact that the two were contemporaries, and that López de Arteaga’s known paintings also display familiarity with the idioms of Juan de Roelas, Francisco de Herrera the Elder, and the young Diego Velázquez and Alonso Cano. Strong chiaroscuro appears in few of López de Arteaga’s paintings, most of which are characterized by softer lighting and more nuanced coloring. The differences, though always discussed with respect to stylistic influences, should also be evaluated in iconographic terms.

Clara Bargellini

Alonso López de Herrera

(Valladolid, Spain c. 1580–1675 Zacatecas, Mexico)

Alonso López de Herrera was a Spanish painter who moved to Mexico, working there for much of the seventeenth century. Until recently it was thought that he was from Mexico City, but the document of the profession of faith he made upon entering the Order of Saint Dominic in Mexico in 1624 states that he was born in Valladolid, Spain, around 1580. It also states that he was the son of Alonso de Herrera and Maria de Cárdenas. López de Herrera’s father may have been the Spanish painter of that name active in the area of Palencia and Segovia in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, with whom he may have trained before moving to Mexico.

It is not known when the artist arrived in New Spain, but it must have been before 1609, when he is recorded as working in the church of Santo Domingo. There he signed the magnificent portrait of Archbishop Friar García Guerra (Museo Nacional del Virreinato, Tepotzotlán, Mexico).

After his wife died, López de Herrera entered the Order of Saint Dominic, and while still a novice he was commissioned by the order to execute the paintings for the high altar of the church of their monastery. This altarpiece was lost in the nineteenth century, but it may have included the paintings on wooden panels of The Assumption of the Virgin and The Resurrection of Christ (Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico City), as well as the recently restored Ascension.

Known since his own time as “the divine Herrera,” López de Herrera’s output is relatively small, but it reveals an artist of great technical mastery with a personal style, evident in the high quality of his drawing, particularly in the correct manner of depicting hands and in the wealth of detail.

After a period spent with the Dominican Order in Mexico City, López de Herrera seems to have moved to Puebla. From the mid-century, however, he is recorded in the monastery at Zacatecas, where he died in 1675.

Rogelio Ruiz Gomar

Joaquím Machado de Castro

(Coimbra, Portugal 1731–1822 Lisbon, Portugal)

A native of Coimbra, Portugal, Joaquím Machado de Castro was the son of organist and sculptor Manuel Machado Teixeira. He later relocated to Lisbon, where he worked under Nicolau Pinto, a sculptor of saintly images, and in the workshop of José de Almeida. In 1756 he became the main assistant to the sculptor Alessandro Giusti in the works commissioned for the monastery of Mafra, which completed his period of apprenticeship.

His most important creations include the equestrian statue of King Joseph I (1771)—the crowning feature of the Marquis de Pombal’s reconstruction of Lisbon—as well as all of the statuary at the Basílica da Estrela and a series of royal tombs for Mariana of Austria, Mariana Vitória, and Afonso IV and his wife Beatrice. While Machado de Castro’s religious works (in poly-chromed wood and terracotta) are less significant, we do know that he sculpted an image of Our Lady of the Incarnation for the church of the same name, and that he revived the Portuguese predilection for sentimental and narrative pieces, such as the Nativity scenes he created in terracotta. Machado de Castro always worked from his atelier, thus forming a steady circle of disciples and followers. As a result, a large body of work has been attributed to him.

Myriam A. Ribeiro de Oliveira

Antonio Mateo de los Reyes

(born Caracas [?], Venezuela; active 1725–1766 Caracas, Venezuela)

The date of birth of Antonio Mateo de los Reyes is not known, although he was very likely born in Caracas, the city of origin of his parents, Santiago de los Reyes and Isabel de Liendo, who were both white. The first known documentary reference to him dates to 1725. He married Maria Feliciana Blanco de Acosta, with whom he had six children. Mateo de los Reyes enjoyed a brilliant career as a carpenter, achieving great renown. In 1756 the city council appointed him inspector of weights and measures and chief master carpenter, to replace inspector and master builder Ventura Balcázar, who had died. The artist’s most important extant work is the lecturer’s desk in the chapel of Santa Rosa de Lima, a building that formed part of the Seminary and the University of Caracas. He often collaborated with gilder Pedro Juan Álvarez Carneiro, who gilded many of the pieces that he carved. Mateo de los Reyes drew up his will on January 15, 1766, and passed away several days later in Caracas.

Jorge F. Rivas P.

Angelino Medoro

(Rome, Italy c. 1567–c. 1631 Seville, Spain)

Angelino Medoro was born in Rome around 1567, and was just 19 years old when he left for New Granada in 1586. Nothing is known of his training or work before his departure for the Americas. His first dated work, the 1588 Annunciation in the church of Santa Clara in Tunja, shows a firm grounding in the Italian mannerist style. In several of his signatures on paintings he identifies himself as Roman, indicating both his birthplace and his artistic allegiances. This may have lent him a certain cache among his clientele in the New World and attracted apprentices to his studio, for which there exist records. The apprentices were of indigenous origin, like Pedro Loayza from Cuzco, and of European descent, such as Luis de Riaño, son of a Spanish captain.

Besides spending time in Tunja, Medoro was active in Santa Fé de Bogotá, Cali, Lima, and Quito. Perhaps his most famous work is a portrait of Saint Rose of Lima (canonized in 1671) that was painted immediately after her death in 1617 and was much copied. In 1588 Medoro married Lucia Pimentai, the illegitimate daughter of Alonso Gutiérrez Pimental, an important government official who in 1600 became commander of Santa Fé de Bogotá. His father-in-law’s connections probably gave Medoro access to important patrons throughout the New World. After his wife’s death in 1609 while in Lima, Medoro married a Creole woman, Maria de Valeto, and later, in 1620, he married María Mesta Pareja, who returned to Spain with him in 1624. Medoro continued to work as a painter there. In 1627, in order to operate as an artist in Seville, he had to undergo an examination by the guild of painters. The examination board had four members, headed by the young Alonso Cano, who had received his own license only the year before. It also included the painter Francisco Varela. Medoro’s will lists considerable property—including three slaves—in both the Americas and Spain, indicating the financial success of his time in the New World.

Carl Brandon Strehlke

Juan de Miranda

(born Mexico City [?]; died c. 1714)

Juan de Miranda was a Mexican painter active in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Little information regarding him survives other than the facts set out in his own will, dated October 12, 1714. This states that he was born in Mexico City; that he was the natural son of Antonio de Miranda and Nicolasa Ramírez; that he had two brothers, José and Ventura de Miranda, the latter possibly the artist who executed a work in a chapel of the Mexico City cathedral; that he married Maria de Mendoza on April 2, 1689; that his wife did not bring any dowry but only her household items and clothes; that at that time he had no money whatsoever; and that he had no children within the marriage or outside it. Finally, we know that in 1697, 1698, 1702, and 1711 he was involved in the valuation of paintings for estates. Juan de Miranda must have died shortly after his will was written and signed.

Notable among this artist’s few extant works is his first known portrait, depicting Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz; the “Apostle” series now in the Museo Nacional de las Intervenciones (previously the Museo de Churubusco), Mexico City; and the series of angels with emblems of the Passion in the Jesuit church in the city of Pátzcuaro (Michoacán State, Mexico). These works reveal the influence of Juan Correa and Cristóbal de Villalpando, although they lack the quality of these artists’ paintings.

Rogelio Ruiz Gomar

Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz

(San Miguel de Grande, Mexico 1713–c. 1772)

Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz was born in San Miguel de Grande (present-day San Miguel de Allende) in 1713. He was registered on his baptismal certificate as a mestizo, like his parents, and with the name of Juan alone. Other documents, as well as signatures on paintings, show that he also used the names Juan Patricio and Juan Gil Patricio. He married María Careaga and had a large number of children. He was probably a disciple of José de Ibarra, and he belonged to the same generation as Miguel Cabrera and Antonio Vallejo. In 1772 he drew up his testament, but it is not certain that he actually died in that year. In 1751 he took part, along with José de Ibarra, Francisco Antonio Vallejo, José de Alcíbar, Manuel de Osorio, José Ventura Arnáez, and Miguel Cabrera, in the inspection of the miraculous ayate bearing the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Their opinions were set out in Cabrera’s treatise American Marvel.

The new influences that were reaching New Spain at the time are clearly seen in Morlete’s work. His style varies from one painting to another, making him a typical artist in transition who on some occasions followed traces of the baroque and on others employed neoclassical elements. Some of his works were in fact copied from French engravings, rather than the Flemish and Italian ones that traditionally circulated among artists in New Spain. These works of French influence include the series of views of French ports taken from the prints of Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714–1789), to which Morlete added a view of the Plaza del Volador in Mexico City and another of the Plaza Mayor (La Valeta palace, Malta). It is perhaps the transitional times that gave his work its uneven quality, as he moved from the precise lines and brilliant coloring of one style to the looser brushwork in the series of paintings of castas that have recently come to light in Spain. A keen and accurate portraitist, Morlete Ruiz produced noteworthy portraits of two viceroys, the Marquis of las Amarillas and the Marquis of Croix, which offer a hint of the prestige he enjoyed among his contemporaries.

Juana Gutiérrez Haces

Luis Niño

(active Potosí, Bolivia, c. 1730s)

The Historia de la villa imperial de Potosí, written by Bartolomé Arzáns de Orsúa y Vela, was continued after 1736 by his son, Diego. Writing in 1737 of the painter Luis Niño, Diego noted: “At the time of writing, Luis Niño lives in this Town where he was born, a sagacious Indian, second Zeuxis, Apelles, or Timantes, who, it should be noted, paints and sculpts brilliantly when inspired. Various works by his hand in silver, wood, and on canvas have been taken to Europe, Lima, and Buenos Aires to the general approval, and at the present time he is working for the Archbishop of La Plata [present-day Sucre].” This indicates that Luis Niño was a painter, sculptor, and silversmith who was so highly regarded in his own time that he was compared with the ancient Greeks. This comparison was generally applied only to the major artists who came to South America from Europe, such as Mateo Pérez de Alesio.

No other documentary information is available on this artist, although there are various securely attributed works, such as the Virgin of Sabaya (Museo de la Casa Nacional de Moneda, Potosí), which is signed, and an autograph replica in the Recoleta at Sucre. Other paintings are considered to be by his hand, including the Virgin of the Victoria de Málaga in the Denver Art Museum (Colorado), the Virgin of the Rosary in the Museo de Arte, Lima, another Virgin of the Rosary in the Museo de la Moneda, and a small Virgin with various titles (Carmen, Rosario, Copacabana, Merced, etc.) in the Museo de Arte Hispanoamericano Isaac Fernández Blanco, Buenos Aires. All these works reveal drawing and gilding of great precision, characteristic of this artist’s style.

A reference by Arzáns y Vela indicates a connection between the indigenous Luis Niño and the architectural decoration of the facade of San Lorenzo Potosí. The historian states that both the facade decoration and the Virgin of Sahaya were commissioned by the Indians of Carangas. The Virgin was their patron and the church of San Lorenzo their parish church. From this we can infer that Luis Niño was involved with the famous facade in Potosí. We know that he created wooden architectural structures: he executed a surviving, signed altarpiece for the Merced in Sucre. The treatment of the decoration of this altarpiece is comparable to that of the facade of San Lorenzo.

Teresa Gisbert

José de Páez

(Mexico City 1727–1790)

José de Páez was born in Mexico City in 1727. His father was a schoolmaster but is mentioned in certain documents alongside the names of painters, which suggests that he had some connection with the painters’ guild. This may be why his son took up the art. José de Páez’s manner exemplifies the features that created a stylistic school around the middle of the eighteenth century in New Spain. His human figures tend to be rendered in relaxed postures and with gentle countenances, whether the context is secular or religious, though they are not lacking in dramatic quality when demanded by the subject. Unlike the painters of the seventeenth century, however, Páez was able to temper the dramatic force of the high baroque with a new tenderness. In coloring, reds and blues predominate; although Páez and his contemporaries were indeed magnificent colorists, it would seem that all the colors work around these two axes. José de Páez showed equal skill in the execution of large-scale works, such as the series of the life of San Francisco Solano (now in Zapopan), and of miniatures, such as his nuns’ shields. This important genre consisted of small round paintings on sheets of metal or paper that were placed on the front and center of nuns’ habits; they depicted the particular devotions of the bearer and, most importantly, indicated the new name she had assumed upon entering the convent. Páez took great pains with these highly meticulous paintings and revealed a strong compositional sense, managing in some cases to display a multitude of holy figures within a very small compass. In some of his paintings and series, he depicted the daily life of New Spain with a wealth of details.

Juana Gutiérrez Haces

Andrés Sánchez Gallque

(Andean, active Quito, Ecuador, late sixteenth–early seventeenth century)

Andrés Sánchez Gallque was a native Andean painter who lived and worked in Quito in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The precise dates of his birth and death are not known. He is presumed to have been trained in Quito as a painter by the Dominican friar Pedro Bedón, who in turn had studied with Bernardo Bitti, an Italian mannerist brought to Lima by the Jesuits. The identification with Bedón is based in part on the fact that Andrés Sánchez Gallque’s name was one of the very first to be inscribed in the book of the Confraternity of the Rosary, an important religious society of the church of Santo Domingo in Quito that was founded by Bedón. This confraternity records the names of several other Andean painters, including Alonso Chacha, Antonio Naupa, and Francisco Vilcacho. In addition to these native artists, the confraternity listed Spaniards and Africans as well as other Indians as members.

Sánchez Gallque was one of the better known artists in Quito. He was certainly one of the artists commissioned in 1598 by the cabildo (city council) of Quito to decorate the funeral monument for Felipe II, on which were placed paintings of the cities of the district. The artist is best known for his signed and dated portrait of Don Francisco de la Robe and His Sons Pedro and Domingo (cat. VI-70), which was sent to Felipe III in 1599. He is credited with a series of portraits of the Spanish kings and queens that forms part of the collection of the great monastery of San Francisco in Quito. This monastery has a painting of Christ at the Column that is also attributed to Sánchez Gallque, an attribution based on the work’s similarity to a signed painting of the same subject found in Bolivia. The fact that Andrés Sánchez Gallque signed at least two of his paintings is highly unusual in the Viceroyalty of Peru and attests to the high regard in which he was held during the early colonial period.

Thomas B. F. Cummins

Gregorio Vásquez de Arce y Ceballos

(Santa Fé de Bogotá, Colombia 1638–1711 Santa Fé de Bogotá, Colombia)

Gregorio Vásquez de Arce y Ceballos’s religious paintings were commissioned by churches, monasteries, and private individuals in and around Bogotá. More than five hundred oil paintings and just over one hundred drawings (Museo de Arte Colonial, Bogotá) by Vásquez are now known. Vásquez’s series of more than fifty paintings for Bogota’s chapel of the Sagrario (1660–1700), commissioned by Gabriel Gómez de Sandoval, as well as his paintings for the parish church of Mongui (1671), the Colegio de Nuestra Señora del Rosario, Bogotá (1698–99), and for the religious orders of Santo Domingo, San Francisco, and San Ignacio count among his most important projects. Vásquez executed portraits of the founders and members of these religious orders as well as subjects from the lives of Christ, the Virgin, and the saints.

Vásquez has been celebrated by modern Colombians as the best painter of viceregal New Granada and was praised by the renowned French art critic and writer Louis Gillet (1876–1943). His talent was recognized in the nineteenth century by the German scientist Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), who visited the territory in 1801, and by the distinguished writer, artist, and historian José Manuel Groot (1800–1878) in the first art monograph published in Colombia. Vásquez enjoyed tremendous favor during his lifetime, working primarily as a painter of religious themes for Santa Fé de Bogotá’s clergy and monastic orders. He is recognized today for his significant influence on New Granadan painting and as a masterful draftsman with a close affinity to the seventeenth-century school of Seville—in particular its exponents Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682) and Francisco de Zurbarán (1598–1664), whose workshop exported paintings directly to Spanish America in a thriving trade. Vásquez’s drawings show an economy of line and a contour that creates a sense of volume without the use of shading. They are recognizable in some instances as preparatory sketches for his finished paintings and as studies in which he refined foreshortenings, anatomical parts, portrait heads, and figural groups.

The resemblance of Vásquez’s oil paintings to the tenebrism of Andalusian baroque art and to the sweet spirituality of Murillo is so strong that earlier scholars, such as Alberto Urdaneta, inferred that the artist must have traveled to Spain. Others suggested a personal contact with Murillo’s son, Gabriel, who in 1678 left for New Granada and held the office of district governor (corregidor) of Ubaque. In addition to emulating Sevillian masters, Vásquez’s compositions interpret other Spanish and Italian Renaissance and baroque models, which would have been available through the circulation of prints. As Roberto Pizano Restrepo has documented, Vásquez copied prints of subjects by Murillo (Holy Family, Vision of Saint Anthony), Guido Reni (Virgin of the Angels), Jusepe de Ribera (Apostles), Peter Paul Rubens (Flight into Egypt), Sassoferrato (Virgin in Contemplation), Tintoretto (Christ Washing the Feet of His Disciples), Paolo Veronese (Annunciation), and Zurbáran (Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, Christ Child with Thorn). Vásquez’s two majestic Virgins after Reni are particularly stunning (1693, Museo del Seminario, Bogotá; 1670, parish church of Tenjo).

Vásquez also assimilated European pictorial models and technical rigor during his apprenticeship in the Santa Fé workshop of the important Figueroa family of painters, under the instruction of Baltasar de Vargas Figueroa (d. 1667). Baltasar, whose solid and weighty figures are absent in the work of Vásquez, introduced European baroque traces to the stylistic aesthetic of New Granadan religious painting. The precocious Vásquez is said to have been expelled from the workshop in 1658 for having retouched the eyes of a painting of Saint Roch by his master (church of Santa Bárbara, Bogotá) and to have opened his own workshop the following year. In his oil paintings, Vásquez incorporated the use of elastic gum, elemi resin, and clay, materials adopted by New Granada’s criollos from earlier indigenous artistic practices.

Alicia Lubowski

Pedro de Vargas

(Mondila, Andalusia, Spain 1553–after 1597)

Born in Mondila outside of Cordoba in 1553, Pedro de Vargas seems to have traveled to the New World with his family at an early age. He was certainly in Lima by 1568, and was a soldier before joining the Jesuit order on August 6, 1575, at the age of 21. By that time he was known as a painter and gilder of talent, and it has been suggested that he was trained by Juan de Illescas, another Cordoban painter working in Lima. It is also likely that he had some connection with the architect Juan Ruiz, also of Andalusian origin, who built the Compañía in Cuzco, because the design of the large full-wall altarpieces was as much the responsibility of the architect as that of the painters and sculptors who executed the individual parts. Though designated as a painter in documents, Vargas seems to have worked largely as a sculptor and gilder, as he explained in 1585 when writing of his collaboration with Bernardo Bitti in Lima and Cuzco. Vargas received permission to leave the Jesuit Order in 1597. His other works and death date and place are not known.

Carl Brandon Strehlke

Cristóbal de Villalpando

(Mexico City c. 1649–1714 Mexico City)

Born, by his own account, in Mexico City around 1649, Cristóbal de Villalpando was an active member of society in New Spain, first as an ensign and later as a captain, probably of the guild militias. He was married twice and had many children, among whom it is likely that the painter Carlos de Villalpando is to be numbered. Villalpando was celebrated in his time and had the honor on various occasions of being appointed overseer (veedor) of the painters’ guild. He probably began his career alongside the painter Baltasar de Echave Rioja, thus continuing the long tradition of this workshop in the artistic life of New Spain. In his youth Villalpando performed important work for the cathedral of Puebla, including a large painting of the Transfiguration and, later, a depiction of the Assumption of the Virgin on the inside of the dome. Chosen by the cathedral chapter in Mexico City to paint the walls of the sacristy, he produced several of his masterpieces. In The Church Militant and the Church Triumphant, The Triumph of Religion, The Virgin of the Apocalypse, and The Apparition of Saint Michael Archangel, the influence of Peter Paul Rubens is evident in the vivid coloring, the robust human forms, and the dynamism of the compositions. Villalpando did not by any means copy, however, but worked rather as one who had learned his lessons well and was able to combine what he had learned with his local tradition. In later years he would move away from the influence of Rubens and paint with greater measure, creating stylized figures of distinctive elegance. Making generous use of a rich and abundant palette, he employed rough blots or smudges in certain works and careful, meticulous brushwork in others. In short, he adapted his technical means to the subject matter, the support, and probably even to the patron of the work at hand. In his final years he made progress in his study of light and moved away from the uniform luminosity of the large-scale scenes in the sacristy of the Mexico City cathedral toward the use of greater contrast, with artificial light sources that add a dramatic tone absent in his earlier work. He was probably the owner of a large workshop with various followers, and he exercised a deep influence on the painting of New Spain. Villalpando died in Mexico City in 1714.

Juana Gutiérrez Haces

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