Portrait of Don Francisco Leandro de Viana, Count of Tepa (Retrato de don Francisco Leandro de Viana, conde de Tepa)

Spanish Colonial Art
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Objects Talk: A Portrait of a Count with Lofty Ambitions

September 29, 2022
Displayed for the first time in Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800 is a special portrait by the Mexican painter Andrés de Islas (c. 1730–c. 1783). In the second half of the 18th century, Islas had become a highly sought-after painter among the local elite, so it is not surprising that the Count of Tepa would commission a portrait by him.

Portrait of Don Francisco Leandro de Viana, Count of Tepa (Retrato de don Francisco Leandro de Viana, conde de Tepa)

Mexico, circa 1775-1780
Paintings
Oil on canvas
Unframed: 41 1/8 × 33 in. (104.5 × 83.8 cm); framed: 45 3/4 × 37 3/4 × 2 in. (116.21 × 95.89 × 5.08 cm)
Purchased with funds provided by the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund (M.2018.186)
Latin American Art
Not currently on public view

Provenance

Francisco Leandro de Viana, first Count of Tepa (1730–1804), 1775, Mexico and Madrid; by descent to multiple family members, Madrid, 18th–20th centuries; private collection, Dax, France, 1968; Carteia...
Francisco Leandro de Viana, first Count of Tepa (1730–1804), 1775, Mexico and Madrid; by descent to multiple family members, Madrid, 18th–20th centuries; private collection, Dax, France, 1968; Carteia Fine Arts, Madrid, 2018; LACMA, 2018.
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Label

Francisco Leandro de Viana, a Spanish royal bureaucrat, arrived in Mexico in 1758 as judge of the high court.

...

Francisco Leandro de Viana, a Spanish royal bureaucrat, arrived in Mexico in 1758 as judge of the high court. Profoundly invested in projecting an image of social respectability, he commissioned this portrait to commemorate his new title as Count of Tepa (1775), later altering the inscription to record his appointment to the Council of the Indies (1776) and his membership to the Order of Charles III (1780).

A striking element is the attention lavished on the figure’s outfit: a fashionable French-style suit made of polychrome ciselé silk velvet with gold metallic threads (similar to this one: M.2007.211.947a-c). This luxury fabric demonstrated the sitter’s ascending status.


From exhibition Archive of the World, 2022 (for more information see the catalogue entry by Ilona Katzew in the accompanying publication, cat. no. 43, pp. 201–04)
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Bibliography

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Katzew, Ilona. “Trastoques y elipsis en un retrato de tornaviaje: La ductilidad de los mensajes.” In Tornaviaje: Tránsito artístico entre los virreinatos americanos y la metrópolis, edited by Fernando Quiles, Fernando, Pablo F. Amador Marrero, and Martha Fernández. Seville: Universo Barroco Iberoamericano, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, 2020, pp. 13–32.

  • Ilona Katzew, “Objects Talk: A Portrait of a Count with Lofty Ambitions,” Unframed, September 22, 2022, https://unframed.lacma.org/2022/09/22/objects-talk-portrait-count-lofty-ambitions.

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Exhibition history

  • 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