Archbishop Narciso Coll y Prat and José-Vicente-Eulogio-Ramón-Ignacio-de-Jesús de Rada-y-Verois

Venezuela was an important part of Spain’s Caribbean empire until it gained independence in 1821. In the late colonial period, Emeterio Emazábel painted this double portrait to commemorate the occasion when an elite Creole (a person of Spanish descent born in the Americas) received his degree from the Royal and Pontifical University of Caracas. The city’s Spanish-born archbishop, who also served as the university’s rector, conferred the degree. Less than 2 percent of the population in late colonial Venezuela received a university education, which was then not available to non-nobles, women, or people of color.