van Meurs workshop, Potosí, 1671. Engraving on paper; 15⅛ × 17¾ in. Gift of Seymour Rubenfeld, 1985.673.

height: 15.125 in, 38.4175 cm; width: 17.75 in, 45.0850 cm

Mayer Center, Latin American Art

Latin American Art

According to legend, silver was discovered at the Cerro Rico (“rich mountain”) of Potosí by Diego Hualca (or Gualpa) in 1545. Though the story is apocryphal, the Spanish soon began large-scale mining operations at the Cerro Rico using a system of forced Indigenous labor (known as the mita). The wealth from silver mining made Potosí one of the largest and richest cities in the Americas.

This view was originally devised by Jacob van Meurs for Arnoldus Montanus’ De Nieuwe en Onbekende Weereld (The New and Unknown World, Amsterdam, 1671). Having few visual sources to draw from, apart from Pedro Cieza de Leon’s 1553 woodcut, the van Meurs/Montanus view renders the colonial city as a small European town at the base of the mountain. The water mills used in silver refining have also been replaced by a large windmill. Though palm trees do not grow in the arid climate of Potosí, the artist has added palms to indicate the exotic setting, a feature also found in other cityscapes in Montanus’ text (see 1985.676). The artist has also added a stately cathedral to the summit of the Cerro Rico, much larger than the churched erected by the Spanish on the mountain.

This hand-colored version could have been published in either Montanus’s text or its English translation by John Ogilby.

– Kathryn Santner, Frederick and Jan Mayer Fellow of Spanish Colonial Art, 2022

Collection of Seymour Rubenfeld [1929-2011?], McLean, VA; Gifted to the Denver Art Museum, 1985

• “ReVision: Art in the Americas” — Denver Art Museum, 10/24/2021 – 7/17/2022
• ReVision: Art in the Americas, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN, 7/1/23 - 9/17/23