Colonial School, Late Eighteenth Century

Portrait of Don Juan de Dios Parreño y Pardo
inscribed Dn Juan de Dios Parreño y Pardo. in the lower lef

oil on canvas

28 ¼ x 21 ¾ inches (71.7 x 55.2 cm.)

PROVENANCE: Hearst Corporation; Hearst Corporation sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, May 17, 1963, lot 95; where purchased by Mrs. S. D. Preston

A young navigator wearing a blue jacket with gold buttons, beige waistcoat, white shirt and neckerchief tied in a bow, is seated at a desk with an outspread map of an island, on which a caliper and octant rest.¹ He points to a sailing vessel upon open seas in the background. The plinth to the left of the sitter is an allusion to his classical training. The attributes surrounding Don Juan de Dios Parreño y Pardo identify him as a member of the newly elite group of mariners and navigators who rose to prominent positions in Spain, especially in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. ²

Spain at this time controlled the largest overseas empire in the world, and it needed updated and more precise nautical charts of its holdings. This was undertaken through large expeditions organized in Spain in tandem with more localized explorations through its maritime departments in the Americas. Numbering more than sixty during the century the result was the drafting of hundreds of charts and maritime routes and astronomically positioned ports, bays, capes and reefs from Alaska, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and California all the way to the Straight of Magellan, and from the Caribbean Islands and the Gulf of Mexico to Patagonia, along with the Philippines and some archipelagos in the Pacific.³ Put in positions of extraordinary first-hand knowledge of the monarchy’s holdings by the hydrographical expeditions, these young mariners and navigators would rise to important administrative positions in various outposts as well as become key figures in commercial exchange, defense and the articulation of policies regarding the Americas.⁴ The brightness of his future as well as Parreño’s enthusiam for the forthcoming adventure emanate from the canvas.

While obviously painted at Parreño’s new posting the country of origin remains obscure. Native born artists throughout Latin America were trained in the style of the Spanish court which would become the touchstone for Latin American portraiture. Because of the similarity of this training throughout Latin America, the portrait types of South America, Mexico and the Caribbean came to share more unifying than diversifying trends.⁵ Due to the commonality of imagery among mainly anonymous painters a defining country of origin as well as a particular artistic identity remains hard to pinpoint. Newly developed in the eighteenth century the octant measured the altitude of celestial bodies with greater accuracy than its precursor, the astrolabe. It had an arc of 24 and was used by navigators for measuring angles up to 90.

¹ José de la Sota Ríos, “Spanish Science and Enlightenment Expeditions”, exhibition catalogue Seattle Art Museum, Washington, 1492 Spain in the Age of Exploration 1819, 2004, p. 174.
² Ibid., p. 163.
³ Ibid., p. 174.
⁴ Carolyn Kinder Carr, “Mirror Image – Portraiture in Latin America and the United States,” exhibition catalogue El Museo del Barrio, New York, Retratos – 2000 Years of Latin American Portraiture, December 3, 2004 – March 20, 2005 and traveling, Yale University Press, New Haven, pp. 20, 22 & 23.

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