Doña Inés de Velasco
painterCopy after
Baltasar de Echave Orio
(about 1558 - about 1620, Mexico City)
Date17th century
Place MadeMexico City, Mexico state, Mexico, North America
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions103 x 79 cm (40 9/16 x 31 1/8 in.)
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LineIsabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Accession numberP33e13
eMuseum ID724540
EmbARK ObjectID13913
TMS Source ID2757
Last Updated8/9/24
Status
Not on viewWeb CommentaryIsabella Stewart Gardner’s induction into the Hispanic Society in 1911 reflected more than a fascination with Spain alone. Her enthusiasm for Spanish speaking cultures also found expression closer to home in the art of Mexico.
In 1871, long before she began to collect the works of celebrated European painters, Isabella Stewart Gardner attended a sale of Mexican art in Boston. The auction house offered “the noble pictures of Mexican masters” purchased from convents and monasteries dissolved by the Mexican government a decade earlier. For a mere thirteen dollars, Gardner bought this pendant pair of portraits attributed to the eighteenth-century Mestizo painter Miguel Cabrera (1695–1768).
They depict Don Diego Caballero and his wife Doña Inés, a wealthy Spanish couple who owned the largest sugarcane plantation in New Spain and profited from the abundance of enslaved labor exploited by colonial settlers. In 1600, they founded a convent in Mexico City dedicated to Santa Inés. Intended for poor girls without dowries, it housed thirty-three nuns including the Caballeros’ nieces as well as a number of orphans. Gardner’s paintings of its founders are probably local copies after originals by Baltasar de Echave Orio (about 1558 – about 1620).
In 1871, long before she began to collect the works of celebrated European painters, Isabella Stewart Gardner attended a sale of Mexican art in Boston. The auction house offered “the noble pictures of Mexican masters” purchased from convents and monasteries dissolved by the Mexican government a decade earlier. For a mere thirteen dollars, Gardner bought this pendant pair of portraits attributed to the eighteenth-century Mestizo painter Miguel Cabrera (1695–1768).
They depict Don Diego Caballero and his wife Doña Inés, a wealthy Spanish couple who owned the largest sugarcane plantation in New Spain and profited from the abundance of enslaved labor exploited by colonial settlers. In 1600, they founded a convent in Mexico City dedicated to Santa Inés. Intended for poor girls without dowries, it housed thirty-three nuns including the Caballeros’ nieces as well as a number of orphans. Gardner’s paintings of its founders are probably local copies after originals by Baltasar de Echave Orio (about 1558 – about 1620).
BibliographyNotesLeonard & Co. Catalogue of Rare Original Paintings, Collected in 1861, From the Convents and Churches of Mexico, Suppressed by the Government (Boston, 12 January 1871), p. 12, lot 115. (as by Miguel Cabrera)
Michael A. Brown. "Spanish Presence in a Fledgling Republic: Portraiture in Hispanic America and the United States" in Donna Pierce (ed.). New England/New Spain: Portraiture in the Colonial Americas, 1492-1850 (Denver, 2016), pp. 208-210, 223, fig. 3. (as possibly Baltasar Echave Orio, early 17th century)
Nelly Sigaut. "Los primeros pintores hispanos en México" in Luis Javier Cuesta Hernández (ed.). Trazos en la historia. Arte Español en México (Madrid: Ediciones El Viso, 2017), pp. 59-60, fig. 14. (as copy of Baltasar de Echave Orio, 18th century)
Michael A. Brown. "Beyond the Peninsula, Beyond Painting: Spain's Global Golden Age" in Michael A. Brown (ed.). Art & Empire: The Golden Age of Spain. Exh. cat. (San Diego: San Diego Museum of Art, 2019), pp. 56-57, fig. 40. (as copy after Baltasar de Echave Orio, 17th century)
Nathaniel Silver, "Isabella Stewart Gardner and Mexico," Inside the Collection (blog), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 21 December 2020, https://www.gardnermuseum.org/blog/isabella-stewart-gardner-and-mexico
Emma Cormack and Michele Majer. Threads of Power: Lace from the Textilmuseum St. Gallen. Exh. cat. (New York: Bard Graduate Center, 2022). pp. 158.
Michael A. Brown. "Spanish Presence in a Fledgling Republic: Portraiture in Hispanic America and the United States" in Donna Pierce (ed.). New England/New Spain: Portraiture in the Colonial Americas, 1492-1850 (Denver, 2016), pp. 208-210, 223, fig. 3. (as possibly Baltasar Echave Orio, early 17th century)
Nelly Sigaut. "Los primeros pintores hispanos en México" in Luis Javier Cuesta Hernández (ed.). Trazos en la historia. Arte Español en México (Madrid: Ediciones El Viso, 2017), pp. 59-60, fig. 14. (as copy of Baltasar de Echave Orio, 18th century)
Michael A. Brown. "Beyond the Peninsula, Beyond Painting: Spain's Global Golden Age" in Michael A. Brown (ed.). Art & Empire: The Golden Age of Spain. Exh. cat. (San Diego: San Diego Museum of Art, 2019), pp. 56-57, fig. 40. (as copy after Baltasar de Echave Orio, 17th century)
Nathaniel Silver, "Isabella Stewart Gardner and Mexico," Inside the Collection (blog), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 21 December 2020, https://www.gardnermuseum.org/blog/isabella-stewart-gardner-and-mexico
Emma Cormack and Michele Majer. Threads of Power: Lace from the Textilmuseum St. Gallen. Exh. cat. (New York: Bard Graduate Center, 2022). pp. 158.
MarksNotesInscribed in oil (bottom): Lam.Ile Senoradoa.InesDeVelasco / Piadosissima Fundadora de esse Convento, y Iglesia de N.M.S, Ines. / Requiescat in Pace. / Amen.
ProvenanceNotesPresumably in the collection of the convent of Santa Ines, Mexico City.
Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner (with a pendant portrait, museum no. P33w10) from the auction house Leonard & Co., Boston for $13 on 12 January 1871, lot 115. (as by Miguel Cabrera)
Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner (with a pendant portrait, museum no. P33w10) from the auction house Leonard & Co., Boston for $13 on 12 January 1871, lot 115. (as by Miguel Cabrera)
