Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz
IX. From Spaniard and Albino Woman, Return Backwards (IX. De español y albina, torna atrás)circa 1760

Not on view

Oil painting of a man in a gray cape and red breeches standing beside a woman in a floral red and white skirt holding a swaddled infant, in a wooded landscape with a Spanish inscription at the bottom.

Oil painting detail showing a dark cartouche with gold Roman numeral IX and Spanish text reading 'De Español, y Alvina Torna atras,' with crackled paint surface visible.

Oil painting still life detail showing peaches, figs, small red berries, and halved dark plums on a wooden surface, with a decorative red and blue plate at upper left and a deep crimson draped background; visible craquelure throughout.

Oil painting detail showing the lower torso and legs of a figure in 18th-century court dress: gold-embroidered dark coat, red breeches, black buckled shoes, and a hand gripping a steel rapier with a silver hilt. At right, the edge of a white garment with red floral embroidery is visible.

Oil painting, bust-length portrait of a youth wearing a dark fur-trimmed hat with white linen underneath, a pale blue robe with elaborate gold embroidered trim over a red garment, set against a muted green landscape background, with visible craquelure throughout.

Oil painting of a young woman in white dress with blue sash and red floral embroidered skirt, holding a swaddled infant against her chest, set against a soft landscape background; visible crackled surface throughout.

Artist or Maker: Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz
Mexico, 1713-1772
Title: IX. From Spaniard and Albino Woman, Return Backwards (IX. De español y albina, torna atrás)
Date Made: circa 1760
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Unframed: 39 1/4 × 47 1/2 in. (99.7 × 120.7 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.2011.20.2
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes: A fashionably dressed man and woman with their 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.2011.20.1 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 child is labeled a “Return Backwards” to convey his racial “regression,” away from the Spanish, or “white,” pole. The albino woman, depicted nursing her darker child, wears a richly patterned skirt with vibrant red floral motifs painted with cochineal (the famous vibrant red dye derived from cacti insects), as well as a striped rebozo (shawl) to cover her chest. The Spanish man holds a sword—a privilege that in colonial legislation was reserved only for this group. 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. 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.
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

Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz
IX. From Spaniard and Albino Woman, Return Backwards (IX. De español y albina, torna atrás)circa 1760

Not on view

Artist or Maker: Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz
Mexico, 1713-1772
Title: IX. From Spaniard and Albino Woman, Return Backwards (IX. De español y albina, torna atrás)
Date Made: circa 1760
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Unframed: 39 1/4 × 47 1/2 in. (99.7 × 120.7 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.2011.20.2
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes: A fashionably dressed man and woman with their 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.2011.20.1 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 child is labeled a “Return Backwards” to convey his racial “regression,” away from the Spanish, or “white,” pole. The albino woman, depicted nursing her darker child, wears a richly patterned skirt with vibrant red floral motifs painted with cochineal (the famous vibrant red dye derived from cacti insects), as well as a striped rebozo (shawl) to cover her chest. The Spanish man holds a sword—a privilege that in colonial legislation was reserved only for this group. 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. 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.
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