Eighteenth-century Mexico saw the invention of a unique pictorial genre known as castas (caste paintings). Created as sets of multiple images, the works document the process of mestizaje (racial mixing) among Amerindians, Spaniards, and Africans. The story the paintings tell, reinforced by the inscriptions, is that the mixture of Spaniards and Indians gave back “pure” or white Spaniards, while the union of Spaniards and Indians with Africans led to racial degeneration. Paradoxically, the inclusion of local products presented the New World as a place of boundless natural wonder and emphasized the colonists’ pride in the diversity and prosperity of the land—a friction that permeates the genre.

The figures’ dress and occupations reinforce their social standing. Some Spanish men—as in this example—hold a sword—a privilege that in colonial legislation was only reserved for this group. Two works portray women of African descent wearing a distinctive overblouse fastened with gold or silver brooches and colorful ribbons ( M.2011.20.1 and M.2011.20.3). Sumptuary laws banned Black women and their children from wearing Spanish-style clothing. The fashion they developed in response, which recalls the tunics worn by Moorish women in southern Spain, was often singled out by travelers as highly ostentatious.

• 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.
• Katzew, Ilona. “De español y torna atrás, tente en el aire by Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz,” Chiricú Journal 3, no. 2 (2019): 17–19.

• Ilona Katzew, “New Acquisition: Three Casta Paintings by Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz,” Unframed, April 21, 2011, https://unframed.lacma.org/2011/04/21/new-acquisition-three-casta-paintings-by-juan-patricio-morlete-ruiz.

• 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