The Visitation and the Birth of Saint John the Baptist (La visitación y el nacimiento de san Juan Bautista)

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The Visitation and the Birth of Saint John the Baptist (La visitación y el nacimiento de san Juan Bautista)

Nicolás Enríquez (Mexico, 1704-circa 1790)

Mexico, 1746

Paintings

Oil on copper

Unframed: 41 3/4 × 33 1/4 in. (106.5 × 84.5 cm); framed: 48 13/16 × 40 3/16 × 1 9/16 in. (124 × 102 × 4 cm)

Purchased with funds provided by the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund (M.2016.148)

Latin American Art

Not currently on public view

Provenance

Julio Enrique Domingo López (d....

Julio Enrique Domingo López (d. 2013), Alcobendas, Spain; bequested as the López y Manzano Collection to the city of Alcobendas, 2013; Abalarte Subastas, Madrid, February 10–12, 2016, lot 312; Carteia Fine Arts, Madrid, 2016; LACMA, 2016.

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Label

Nicolás Enríquez was a member of the first academy of painters established in Mexico around 1722.

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Nicolás Enríquez was a member of the first academy of painters established in Mexico around 1722. This set stands out for the unusually large size of the copper plates and for quoting local and European sources. The Marriage of the Virgin (M.2012.38.1) cites a composition by Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), while The Visitation adapts a print in Jerónimo Nadal’s Evangelicae historiae imagines (1593–94), an influential Jesuit text.

In the Adoration of the Kings (M.2012.38.2), Enríquez referenced a major work in Mexico City’s cathedral by his predecessor Juan Rodríguez Juárez—notably, the treasure-chest-wielding figure portrayed from behind (which in turn drew on a famous print of the Battles of Alexander) by Bernard Picart (1673–1733). Additional details, such as the small children, evoke yet another print in Nadal’s book of the same subject. By referencing these works, Enríquez asserted the significance of local and European traditions alike in the creative process of New Spanish painters.

From exhibition Archive of the World, 2022 (for more information see the catalogue entry by Ilona Katzew and Aaron M. Hyman in the accompanying publication, cat. no. 62, pp. 250–56)

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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

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 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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