Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz
VII. From Spaniard and Morisca, Albino (VII. De español y morisca, albino)circa 1760

Not on view

Oil painting of two adults and a child in 18th-century dress grouped in a landscape, with fruit in the lower right and a Spanish inscription below

Oil painting still life with peaches, a pomegranate, and a halved melon arranged on a dark ledge, with foliage and flowers in the shadowy background; warm reddish-brown tones with soft, blended brushwork.

Oil painting of a dark wooded scene with a large tree trunk at right; two small figures in pale blue and white stand in a rocky grotto at center, with pink flowers in the foreground.

Oil painting detail showing a blue floral brocade skirt with gold trim, decorated with red, pink, and ochre flowers and leaves; a hand rests at the hip against a rust-red overskirt, with a landscape visible at upper right.

Oil painting of three figures in an outdoor setting: a central woman in a dark bodice, pearl necklace, and blue floral skirt gestures upward with one hand while pointing down at a small document held by a young blonde child below; an older woman in a white cap and red wrap looks on from behind, against a leafy green background.

Artist or Maker: Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz
Mexico, 1713-1772
Title: VII. From Spaniard and Morisca, Albino (VII. De español y morisca, albino)
Date Made: circa 1760
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Unframed: 39 7/16 × 47 7/16 in. (100.2 × 120.5 cm); framed: 41 5/16 × 49 5/8 × 1 1/2 in. (104.9 × 125.98 × 3.81 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of the 2011 Collectors Committee
Accession Number: M.2011.20.1
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes: A fashionably dressed man, woman, and child stroll together in a lush landscape that includes a still-life arrangement of local and imported fruits. The scene’s apparently idealized view of colonial family life masks a more difficult subject. The title at the bottom of the work reveals that it belonged to a set of casta paintings (see also M.2011.20.2 and M.2011.20.3). Typically created as sets of sixteen canvases, casta paintings document the process of racial mixing among Amerindians, Spaniards, and Africans. Each scene depicts a man and a woman of a different race with one or two of their children. The inscriptions rank the family groups by race and class and often include zoological and other derogatory descriptive terms.

Here, the mother’s distinctive overblouse was worn by women of African descent and was fastened with colorful ribbons and gold and silver brooches. Such fashions developed in response to sumptuary laws that banned Black women from wearing Spanish-style clothing. The Spanish man wears a three-piece suit, a red cape, and a broad hat (chambergo) with a fashionable white Mexican cap (gorro) underneath, as he teaches his albino son to read. Despite the genre’s emphasis on racial classification, the inclusion of local products presented Spanish America as a place of boundless natural wonder and emphasized the colonists’ pride in the diversity and prosperity of the land—a tension that permeates the genre.

Ilona Katzew

2024
Provenance: Charles Samuel Hainworth (1873–1957), United Kingdom, early 20th century; by inheritance to his son Henry Charles Hainworth (1914–2005), Geneva, 1957; Derek Johns Ltd., London, 2010; LACMA, 2011.
Selected 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. “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.
Selected Exhibition History: Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World. November 6, 2011 - January 29, 2012
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

Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz
VII. From Spaniard and Morisca, Albino (VII. De español y morisca, albino)circa 1760

Not on view

Artist or Maker: Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz
Mexico, 1713-1772
Title: VII. From Spaniard and Morisca, Albino (VII. De español y morisca, albino)
Date Made: circa 1760
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Unframed: 39 7/16 × 47 7/16 in. (100.2 × 120.5 cm); framed: 41 5/16 × 49 5/8 × 1 1/2 in. (104.9 × 125.98 × 3.81 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of the 2011 Collectors Committee
Accession Number: M.2011.20.1
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes: A fashionably dressed man, woman, and child stroll together in a lush landscape that includes a still-life arrangement of local and imported fruits. The scene’s apparently idealized view of colonial family life masks a more difficult subject. The title at the bottom of the work reveals that it belonged to a set of casta paintings (see also M.2011.20.2 and M.2011.20.3). Typically created as sets of sixteen canvases, casta paintings document the process of racial mixing among Amerindians, Spaniards, and Africans. Each scene depicts a man and a woman of a different race with one or two of their children. The inscriptions rank the family groups by race and class and often include zoological and other derogatory descriptive terms.

Here, the mother’s distinctive overblouse was worn by women of African descent and was fastened with colorful ribbons and gold and silver brooches. Such fashions developed in response to sumptuary laws that banned Black women from wearing Spanish-style clothing. The Spanish man wears a three-piece suit, a red cape, and a broad hat (chambergo) with a fashionable white Mexican cap (gorro) underneath, as he teaches his albino son to read. Despite the genre’s emphasis on racial classification, the inclusion of local products presented Spanish America as a place of boundless natural wonder and emphasized the colonists’ pride in the diversity and prosperity of the land—a tension that permeates the genre.

Ilona Katzew

2024
Provenance: Charles Samuel Hainworth (1873–1957), United Kingdom, early 20th century; by inheritance to his son Henry Charles Hainworth (1914–2005), Geneva, 1957; Derek Johns Ltd., London, 2010; LACMA, 2011.
Selected 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. “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.
Selected Exhibition History: Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World. November 6, 2011 - January 29, 2012
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

A Scavenger Hunt for Families through Archive of the World

October 5, 2022
Rachel Kaplan