Unknown artist, Double Portrait of Donors (Don Bartholomé Andrés and Don Agustín Pérez), late 1600s. Oil paint on canvas; 22¼ × 27½ in. Gift of the Collection of Frederick and Jan Mayer, 2014.219.

image height: 22.25 in, 56.5150 cm; image width: 27.5 in, 69.8500 cm; frame height: 29.25 in, 74.2950 cm; frame width: 34.125 in, 86.6775 cm; frame depth: 1.25 in, 3.1750 cm

"D. Bartholome Andres" in ULC on front, "D. Augusti Perez" in URC on front

Mayer Center, Latin American Art

Latin American Art

This object is currently on view

This donor portrait shows two high-ranking Indigenous men, hands held in adoration, which was likely hung next to a larger painting of either a saint or the Virgin Mary. The men are identified by name in inscriptions near their heads. Most likely a companion painting of their wives would have been on the other side.
     The donor on the left is wearing the traditional indigenous striped tunic and cape, or tilma, and the donor on the right wears a European-style shirt, neck scarf, and luxurious coat with intentionally slashed shoulders lined in gold or silver thread (in order to show the fine linen of his shirt) and fake notched buttonholes with pearl or silver buttons. Both men display hairstyles of native origin, typical of the Tlaxcala region east of Mexico City.
-- Jorge Rivas, 2017

Gifted 25 November 2014 by the Collection of Frederick and Jan Mayer to the Denver Art Museum. Provenance research is on-going at the Denver Art Museum. Please e-mail provenance@denverartmuseum.org, if you have questions, or if you have additional information to share with us.

• "Painting a New World: Mexican Art and Life 1521 - 1821," Meadows Museum of Art (September 1 - October 31, 2004). Exhibited 2005, "Patronato, Painting from Baroque Mexico: Selected Works from the Collection of Frederick and Jan Mayer," Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ
• "Collecting a New World: Spanish Colonial Art from the Jan and Frederick R. Mayer Collection," Apr 2-May 14, 2005, Lamont Gallery, Phillips Exeter Academy
• "Heaven and Earth: The Jan and Frederick Mayer Collection of Spanish Colonial Art from the Denver Art Museum, Jun 16-Oct 8, 2006, Museo de las Americas, Denver
• "From Viceregal to Verancular: Painting in Colonial Mexico and New Mexico," Nov 17, 2006-Apr 29, 2007, Museum of Spanish Colonial Art, Santa Fe
• "Fashion Fusion: Native Textiles in Spanish Colonial Art," Feb 2013 - Nov 2014, Denver Art Museum.