Browse

Accession #	1992.212
Artist	Pedro José Díaz
Artist	José Joaquín Bermejo
Title	Doña Mariana Belsunse y Salasar
Date	ca. 1780
Medium	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	Canvas: 78 1/8 × 50 1/16 in. (198.4 × 127.2 cm) frame: 81 × 53 7/8 × 2 1/2 in. (205.7 × 136.8 × 6.4 cm) weight w/ frame: 96 lb. (43.55kg)
Marks	Verso: On the bottom proper left cross bar, graphite : “Holden / 18m 787 x 50” with a sketched rectangle made of six sections mimicking the stretcher to the right of the writing On the top proper left cross bar, ink/pen : “Bin #80”
Inscriptions	Inscribed lower right in cartouche: "La Sra. Da Ma / riana Belsunso / y Salasar. / Na / tural de Lima M[u?] / ger legitima de Coronol Agustin de Landal[uru?] y Rivera"
Signed	Unsigned
Credit Line	Gift of Mrs. L.H. Shearman
Location	American Identities: Modern Life

Curatorial Remarks: The sitter for this portrait has been depicted with the conspicuous luxury that befitted her high social status in Spanish colonial Peru. She wears an ankle-length gown called a tobajilla, intricately embroidered in silver and gold over a costly blue and white striped satin or silk fabric. Her buckled shoes are in a matching blue, and she is further adorned with a bejeweled tiara, a silver chandelier earring with large teardrop pearls, matching bracelets, and a choker and a necklace. In her hand is a small but extravagant watch with a silver and pearl pendant.

Doña Mariana was a central figure in one of Lima’s most notorious scandals: she entered a convent to avoid marrying an older man and, when he died, emerged from the cloister to marry the man’s nephew, the wealthy mayor of Lima. The fashionable and brilliant blue of her dress may thus also have been selected to emphasize her chastity.