Miguel Cabrera. Miguel Mateo Maldonado y Cabrera was a Zapotec or Mestizo painter born in Oaxaca but moved to Mexico City, the capital of Viceroyalty of New Spain.
During his lifetime, he was recognized as the greatest painter in all of New Spain. He created religious and secular art for the Catholic Church and wealthy patrons.
His casta paintings, depicting interracial marriage among Amerindians, Spaniards and Africans, are considered among the genre's finest. Cabrera was born in Antequera, today's Oaxaca, Oaxaca, and moved to Mexico City in 1719.
He may have studied under the Rodríguez Juárez brothers or José de Ibarra. Cabrera was a favorite painter of Archbishop Manuel José Rubio y Salinas, whose portrait he twice painted, and of the Jesuits, which earned him many commissions.
In 1756 he created an important analytical study of the icon of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Maravilla americana y conjunto de raras maravillas observadas con la dirección de las reglas del arte de la pintura. Cabrera and a group of six other painters analyzed the painting, with scientific eyes, not religious, identifying four different substances used in the painting: oil, tempera with agglutinates, an aguazo, and a fresco-like tempera. In Cabrera's assessment, no painter was capable of using such techniques in the eighteenth century, much less in the sixteenth century, when the image was created. Cabrera was concerned
During his lifetime, he was recognized as the greatest painter in all of New Spain. He created religious and secular art for the Catholic Church and wealthy patrons.
His casta paintings, depicting interracial marriage among Amerindians, Spaniards and Africans, are considered among the genre's finest. Cabrera was born in Antequera, today's Oaxaca, Oaxaca, and moved to Mexico City in 1719.
He may have studied under the Rodríguez Juárez brothers or José de Ibarra. Cabrera was a favorite painter of Archbishop Manuel José Rubio y Salinas, whose portrait he twice painted, and of the Jesuits, which earned him many commissions.
In 1756 he created an important analytical study of the icon of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Maravilla americana y conjunto de raras maravillas observadas con la dirección de las reglas del arte de la pintura. Cabrera and a group of six other painters analyzed the painting, with scientific eyes, not religious, identifying four different substances used in the painting: oil, tempera with agglutinates, an aguazo, and a fresco-like tempera. In Cabrera's assessment, no painter was capable of using such techniques in the eighteenth century, much less in the sixteenth century, when the image was created. Cabrera was concerned
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