Porus in Battle (La batalla de Poro)

Spanish Colonial Art
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Porus in Battle (La batalla de Poro)

Mexico, circa 1767
Paintings
Oil on canvas
Unframed: 33 3/8 × 49 7/8 in. (84.8 × 126.7 cm); framed: 42 3/4 × 59 1/4 × 4 in. (108.59 × 150.5 × 10.16 cm)
Purchased with funds provided by the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund (M.2021.15)
Latin American Art
Not currently on public view

Provenance

Rafael Cabello de Alba (1925–2010), Madrid; Manuel Garzón Muñoz, Madrid, c. 1960s; Filippo Ziti and Cesare Zaghini, Madrid, 2001; Christie’s, New York, January 2021; LACMA, 2021.

Label

In 1767 Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz created two sets of paintings of the Battles of Alexander, which he modeled after French academic works by Charles Le Brun (1619–1690).

...

In 1767 Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz created two sets of paintings of the Battles of Alexander, which he modeled after French academic works by Charles Le Brun (1619–1690). Recognizing the propaganda value of this metaphor for the reign of Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715), the state commissioned prints after the original compositions, which were enormously popular, including in New Spain.

Morlete Ruiz adhered closely to the source material, but he added the putti on a plinth jutting from a stone ledge. This clever demarcation of space implies that what lies beyond is the product of a double form of artifice—that of the original European painting that served as a model (via a print), which is here dexterously copied by a New Spanish master and staged for display.


From exhibition Archive of the World, 2022 (for more information see the catalogue entry by Ilona Katzew in the accompanying publication, cat. no. 53, pp. 232–37)
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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.

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