Mexican portrait

Recently recovered from the storerooms of the Prado Museum and exhibited at the Museum of America in Madrid, this intriguing baroque portrait reflects the courtesan intimacy of two women, a noble Hispanic infanta who has just come of age as a lady, and her native Chichimec dwarf. The portrait, which was made around 1670, appears to have been painted precisely to announce her new status as a lady of María Luisa de Toledo. The presence of a tattooed native woman dwarf incarnates the power and prestige of the family and its calm dominion over the New World. The viceroy’s court followed the Madrid court’s fashion of sabandijas or diminutive companions endowed with unusual physiognomies. These persons performed symbolic roles as ‘deforming mirrors’ (espejos deformantes) that reinforced the qualities of the nobles, princes and kings with whom they cohabited. The portrait was among the personal possessions that accompanied our lady until her death in 1707 in the Convent of Constantinople in Madrid.