Miguel Cabrera

MIGUEL CABRERA (Oaxaca, Mexico, 1695- Mexico City, 1768).
"Virgin of Guadalupe".
Oil on copper.
It has a XIX century frame with faults.
Signed in the lower central part.
Measurements: 42 x 31,5 cm; 47 x 37 cm (frame).
Miguel Cabrera, was one of the maximum exponents of the novohispanic baroque painting. Born in the town of Tlalixtac, in Oaxaca, he dedicated his work to religious themes and especially to the figure of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and on this last theme he wrote "American marvel and set of rare wonders observed with the direction of the rules of the art of painting" (1756). Cabrera was also the chamber painter of Archbishop José Manuel Rubio y Salinas, and in 1753 he founded the first painting academy in Mexico. Miguel Cabrera was especially splendid in small and medium-sized works, both on canvas and copper. Contrary to what was usual at the time, when in Spain the pictorial production of New Spain was generally disdained, a large number of his works or those of his workshop were sent to the peninsula, even after his death, commissioned or acquired by clients who included members of the most important and cultured Spanish families with relations with the American continent, such as the Marquises of Altamira, the Gálvez and Mayorga families. Currently his works are preserved in several of the main Mexican temples, as well as in the Museo del Virreinato in Tepozotlán, the Museo de América in Madrid, the Museo de El Carmen in San Ángel (Distrito Federal), the Museo Nacional de las Intervenciones in Coyoacán, the Pinacoteca Virreinal in Mexico City, the Dallas Museum of Art and the Museo de Santa Mónica in Puebla.

The iconography of Guadalupe acquired great richness and variety, especially from the 17th century onwards. The representation that concerns us follows faithfully that of the original canvas (attributed to the Indian Marcos Cípac, XVI century): the crescent moon at her feet supported by an angel, the rays bordering the figure, the mandorla, the crown, the dark complexion of the Virgin... Our Lady of Guadalupe is a Marian invocation of the Catholic Church, whose image has its main center of worship in the Basilica of Guadalupe, in the north of Mexico City. According to Mexican oral tradition, it is believed that the Virgin Mary appeared four times to Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin on the hill of Tepeyac. Juan Diego, in the last apparition of the Virgin, carried in his ayate some flowers that he cut on Tepeyac, according to the Virgin's order. He unfolded his ayate before Bishop Juan de Zumárraga, revealing the image of the Virgin Mary, dark and with mestizo features. The Mesoamerican peoples from remote times already venerated in the hill of Tepeyac a deity called Tonantzin, hence there is a certain syncretism with the assimilation of the message brought by the Virgin Mary. This event was known as the Miracle of the Roses, and was recorded in the "Nican Mopohua", a text presumably written by the Indian Antonio Valeriano.