Miguel Cabrera (painter)

Portrait of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. National Museum of History (MNH), Chapultepec Castle.

Mestizaje scene (caste painting(c): From Chinese Cambujo and Indian, Loba. 1763. Museum of America, Madrid, Spain.

Santa Gertrudis (1763), Dallas Art Museum.

Miguel Mateo Maldonado y Cabrera (San Miguel Tlalixtac, Oaxaca, February 27, 1695-Mexico City, May 16, 1768) was a New Spanish painter, known for being one of the greatest exponents of baroque painting of the viceroyalty.

Biography

Miguel Cabrera was born in Antequera de Oaxaca in the year 1695 of unknown parents and the godson of a mulatto couple. He began his artistic activity until the year 1740, his main work is the Ascension of the Virgin, currently owned by the collection of the Morales de Altamirano family, Counts of Morales de los Ríos, Jaén, Spain.

The Marian theme, and more specifically the Virgin of Guadalupe, occupies a large part of his work; On this subject he wrote American Wonder and Ensemble of Rare Wonders Observed with the Direction of the Rules of the Art of Painting (1756). He worked a lot for the Jesuits, and in the current National Museum of the Viceroyalty, in Tepotzotlán, several of his works are preserved in situ, such as in the sacristy, and the choir. On one of the walls of the grand staircase of the current Museum of Guadalupe, in Zacatecas, he displays the large canvas of The Woman of the Apocalypse .

He was a chamber painter for Archbishop Manuel José Rubio y Salinas and founder in 1753 of the first painting academy in Mexico.

Works

He is also the author of a multitude of images of saints distributed in numerous museums, convents and churches. Of his vast production, the following stand out:

• The Ascension of the Virgin (1745)
• The Portrait of Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz (1751).
• The Cross Way of the Cathedral of Puebla.
• The Virgin of Carmen, Metropolitan Cathedral of Xalapa.
• The four oval canvases of the cruise of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City.
• Virgin of the Apocalypse of the Virreinal Pinacoteca.
• Santa Gertrudis, which is part of the Dallas Art Museum collection.
• The martyrdom of St. Sebastian, for the Temple of St. Prisca of Taxco, including paintings of the sacristy of that temple.
• San Ignacio de Loyola.
• Prayer in the garden
• The Conversion of St Francis of Borja
• The pontifical proclamation of the patronage of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the kingdom of New Spain

Some of the places where you can appreciate the works of Miguel Cabrera are:

• Museo Nacional del Virreinato, Tepotzotlán.
• El Carmen Museum, San Angel (Mexico City).
• National Museum of Interventions, Coyoacán.
• Virreinal Pinacoteca, Mexico City.
• Dallas Art Museum, Dallas.
• Museum of America, Madrid.
• Museum of Santa Monica, Puebla.
• Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
• Arocena Museum, Torreón, Coahuila.
• Museo del Obispado, Monterrey, Nuevo León.
• Sacro Art Museum, Guadalajara, Jalisco.
• Pinacoteca de La Profesa in the historic center of Mexico City.
• Durango State Regional Museum (Durango).

His art is splendid in small and medium format works, especially in paintings that use copper plates as a support. In them, its warm and vivid colors stand out, unparalleled in the New Spanish school of the XVIII century, as well as its firm drawing and the poetic expressions of the faces of his Virgins, Saints and even portraits of characters of his time.

Currently

Miguel Cabrera is present in numerous Spanish public and private collections, such as the splendid series of castas in the Museo de América in Madrid, perhaps one of his masterpieces. In December 2008, this museum enriched his heritage with the acquisition of three other works by the painter. The appreciation and price in the art market for the works of Miguel Cabrera has grown vertiginously during the last quarter of the XX century. In 2004, in Madrid, 150,000 euros were paid at public auction for one of his works. However, notably higher prices have recently been reported for some casta paintings on copper.