Morisca Woman and Albino Girl (Morisca y albina)

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Morisca Woman and Albino Girl (Morisca y albina)

Attributed to Miguel Cabrera (Mexico, circa 1715-1768) or Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz (Mexico, 1713-1772)

Mexico, circa 1760

Paintings

Oil on canvas

Unframed: 36 × 28 in. (91.4 × 71.1 cm); framed: 41 1/2 × 34 × 1 1/2 in. (105.41 × 86.36 × 3.81 cm)

Purchased with funds provided by the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund (M.2009.62)

Latin American Art

Not currently on public view

Provenance

Gerald Paget, New York, mid-1960s; Paget family, New York, 1990s; Derek Johns Ltd., London, 2009; LACMA, 2009.

Label

While most casta paintings represent racially mixed couples with their children, this canvas depicts a morisca (a woman of African descent identified by her characteristic overblouse)

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While most casta paintings represent racially mixed couples with their children, this canvas depicts a morisca (a woman of African descent identified by her characteristic overblouse) and her albino child. Thought to descend only from people of African origin, albinos elicited endless fascination on both sides of the Atlantic, leading to all sorts of bizarre theories about their ability to reproduce, or whether their bodies proved how mixed individuals could eventually revert to the so-called original whiteness of humankind (that is, of “blood mending”). Paintings such as this would have spurred speculation about the increasingly mixed population of the Americas and its habits, including widespread tobacco use among women. (Note the cigarette case held by the mother.)

From exhibition Archive of the World, 2022 (for more information see the catalogue entry by Ilona Katzew in the accompanying publication, cat. no. 38, pp. 186–89)

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Bibliography

Katzew, Ilona, ed. Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici. Exh. Cat. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Mexico City: Fomento Cultural Banamex; New York: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2017.

Katzew, Ilona, ed. Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici. Exh. Cat. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Mexico City: Fomento Cultural Banamex; New York: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2017.
Katzew, Ilona, ed. Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800: Highlights from LACMA’s Collection. Exh. Cat. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: DelMonico Books/D.A.P., 2022.

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Exhibition history

Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World Los Angeles, CA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, November 6, 2011 - January 29, 2012
Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici Los Angeles, CA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, November 19, 2017 - March 18, 2018

Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World Los Angeles, CA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, November 6, 2011 - January 29, 2012
Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici Los Angeles, CA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, November 19, 2017 - March 18, 2018
Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici New York, NY, Metropolitan Museum of Art, April 24, 2018 - July 22, 2018
Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici Mexico City, Mexico, Fomento Cultural Banamex, June 29, 2017 - October 15, 2017
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800 Los Angeles, CA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, June 12, 2022 - October 30, 2022
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800 Nashville, TN, Frist Art Museum, October 20, 2023 - January 28, 2024

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