Attributed to Miguel Cabrera (Mexico, circa 1715-1768) or Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz (Mexico, 1713-1772)
Morisca Woman and Albino Girl (Morisca y albina)circa 1760

On view: David Geffen GalleriesTransatlantic Exchange and Its Legacies

Oil painting of a seated woman in striped shawl and pearl jewelry holding a young blonde child, with a landscape visible at right

Oil painting, close-up of a young woman in three-quarter view wearing a red striped shawl, pearl and dark gemstone necklace, drop earrings, and an embroidered red cap; a partially visible child appears at lower left.

Oil painting detail of a fair-haired infant in a white lace gown with a blue sash and decorative tassel, held against the draped red garment of a partially visible adult figure wearing a pearl necklace and jeweled earring, dark background.

Oil painting detail of a hand holding an open silver snuff box with engraved scrollwork, against a dark background, rendered with soft brushwork and dramatic chiaroscuro lighting.

Artist or Maker: Attributed to Miguel Cabrera (Mexico, circa 1715-1768) or Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz (Mexico, 1713-1772)
Title: Morisca Woman and Albino Girl (Morisca y albina)
Date Made: circa 1760
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 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)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund
Accession Number: M.2009.62
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes: The clothing worn by this woman offers clues to her ethnic origin. Women of African descent in New Spain wore similar black overblouses, fastened with colorful ribbons and gold and silver brooches, and covered their chests with local rebozos (shawls). They developed these fashions in response to sumptuary laws that banned Black women from wearing Spanish-style clothing. This figure holds an open box of cigarettes, calling attention to a typical American product—tobacco. While the scene likely portrays a mother of African ancestry and her albino offspring (at that time, albinos were wrongly believed to descend from Black people), it is also possible that contemporaneous viewers imagined that it depicted a Spanish child and her wet nurse.

The young girl holds a rattle and is dressed with a fine linen or cotton blouse and a simple enagua (skirt); she wears a medallion, coral necklace, and hand-shaped figa charm to protect her against the evil eye. Infant mortality was common in those days, and children were often bejeweled with all sorts of amulets, a convention seen as well in Spanish court portraiture depicting children.

Ilona Katzew

2024
Provenance: Gerald Paget, New York, mid-1960s; Paget family, New York, 1990s; Derek Johns Ltd., London, 2009; LACMA, 2009.
Selected 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. 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.
Selected Exhibition History: Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World. November 6, 2011 - January 29, 2012
Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici . Sunday, November 19, 2017 - Sunday, March 18, 2018
Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici . April 24 - July 22, 2018
Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici . June 29 - October 15, 2017
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 12, 2022 - October 30, 2022
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. October 20, 2023 - January 28, 2024
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 22, 2024 - September 08, 2024

Related Exhibitions

Related Unframed

Attributed to Miguel Cabrera (Mexico, circa 1715-1768) or Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz (Mexico, 1713-1772)
Morisca Woman and Albino Girl (Morisca y albina)circa 1760

On view: David Geffen GalleriesTransatlantic Exchange and Its Legacies

Artist or Maker: Attributed to Miguel Cabrera (Mexico, circa 1715-1768) or Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz (Mexico, 1713-1772)
Title: Morisca Woman and Albino Girl (Morisca y albina)
Date Made: circa 1760
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 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)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund
Accession Number: M.2009.62
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes: The clothing worn by this woman offers clues to her ethnic origin. Women of African descent in New Spain wore similar black overblouses, fastened with colorful ribbons and gold and silver brooches, and covered their chests with local rebozos (shawls). They developed these fashions in response to sumptuary laws that banned Black women from wearing Spanish-style clothing. This figure holds an open box of cigarettes, calling attention to a typical American product—tobacco. While the scene likely portrays a mother of African ancestry and her albino offspring (at that time, albinos were wrongly believed to descend from Black people), it is also possible that contemporaneous viewers imagined that it depicted a Spanish child and her wet nurse.

The young girl holds a rattle and is dressed with a fine linen or cotton blouse and a simple enagua (skirt); she wears a medallion, coral necklace, and hand-shaped figa charm to protect her against the evil eye. Infant mortality was common in those days, and children were often bejeweled with all sorts of amulets, a convention seen as well in Spanish court portraiture depicting children.

Ilona Katzew

2024
Provenance: Gerald Paget, New York, mid-1960s; Paget family, New York, 1990s; Derek Johns Ltd., London, 2009; LACMA, 2009.
Selected 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. 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.
Selected Exhibition History: Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World. November 6, 2011 - January 29, 2012
Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici . Sunday, November 19, 2017 - Sunday, March 18, 2018
Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici . April 24 - July 22, 2018
Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici . June 29 - October 15, 2017
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 12, 2022 - October 30, 2022
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. October 20, 2023 - January 28, 2024
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 22, 2024 - September 08, 2024

Related Exhibitions

Related Unframed

Ut pictura poesis: Casta Painting and the Poetry of Natasha Trethewey

December 6, 2022
Ilona Katzew

A Scavenger Hunt for Families through Archive of the World

October 5, 2022
Rachel Kaplan