The Yucatán-born painter Josef Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza (c. 1750-1802) arrived in Luisiana in 1784 and spent eighteen years creating portraits in New Orleans during the Spanish administration (1762-1802).
Jose Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza (Mexican/Louisiana, 1750-1802) , "Portrait of a Louisiana Gentleman", 1801, oil on canvas, signed, dated and inscribed "J.M. Salazar, pinxit, Nova Aurelia, 1801" lower right, 36 1/4 in. x 27 in., antique gilt frame.
Oil on canvas, 40 x 30 inches; in later frame. Jose Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza (1750-1802) was the leading painter of Creole society in New Orleans for the last two decades of the 18th century. Salazar had first arrived in New Orleans in c. 1780, in search of more lucrative commissions and patronage than he had enjoyed while working in Mexico. Judging by the cut of clothing and hairstyle of the sitter, this Salazar portrait of a young, presently-unidentified Yankee sea captain or merchant was probably painted in New Orleans sometime between 1798-1802, the year of the artist's death. The sitter, wearing a double-breasted coat in the current English fashion, probably hails from a prosperous North Shore seafaring family, as it was purchased by a Maine collector some 26 years ago at an estate auction in Newburyport, Massachusetts. The portrait is a 3/4-length, oval view, a convention observed in nearly all extant portraits known to have been painted by Salazar. Salazar's works, especially of Anglo-American visitors to New Orleans, are extremely rare today and highly desirable.
Jose Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza (Mexican/New Orleans, 1750-1802) "Portrait of Marie Cesaire Dreux de Gentilly (1781-1826) and Her Step-Mother, Genevieve Felicite Trudeau de Longueuil Dreux (1770-1802)", ca. 1787-1789 oil on canvas faintly signed lower left. Framed. 36-1/4" x 30", framed 46-1/4" x 39" Provenance: With the sitter Marie Cesaire Dreux de Gentilly Verret, thence by descent; her son (Theodule) Jules Verret (1817-1896); his son Honore A. Verret (1861-1952); his daughter Azelie Verret Bechac (1907-1978); her daughter (the Estate of ) Eulalie Jeanne Bechac Fabacher (1930-2020), River Ridge, Louisiana. Literature: Grace King, Creole Families of New Orleans, (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1921); Josh Foreman and Ryan Starrett, Hidden History of New Orleans, (Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press, 2020); Henry P. Dart, ed., The Louisiana Historical Quarterly, Volume 6, No. 1, (Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Jones Printing Company, 1924); Various, Illustrated Guide and Sketchbook to New Orleans, (New York: Will. H. Coleman, 1885); Cybele Gontar, ed., Salazar, (New Orleans: Ogden Museum of Southern Art/University of New Orleans Press, nd); Mrs. T.N.C. Bruns, Louisiana Portraits, (New Orleans: National Society of the Colonial Dames of America, 1975); John Burton Harter and Mary Louise Tucker, The Louisiana Portrait Gallery Volume I to 1870, (New Orleans: The Louisiana State Museum, 1979) Notes: This impressive double portrait of Marie-Cesaire Dreux de Gentilly and her stepmother Genevieve Felicite Trudeau de Longueuil Dreux by Jose Francisco Xavier de Salazar was commissioned by Guy Dreux de Gentilly around the time of his 1787 marriage (or very shortly thereafter) to Genevieve and is a stunning visual representation of the joining of his two families and testament to his high regard for both his young daughter and his new wife. Salazar was the first identified portraitist working in the city, and his portraits of the most prominent members of Louisiana society - social, military and religious - serve as significant historical records. This portrait reveals numerous stylistic qualities of the artist; it is rendered in deep, rich tones, with the three-quarter-length figures against a vague dark background and encircled in a phantom tondo. All the expected accoutrements of wealth and prestige are evident: the layers of intricate handmade lace, the sumptuous fabrics, and the matching delicate coral and gold jewelry. In the upper right corner is an unexpected element: the faint shadow of two fine tassels hanging from the draperies. The two figures gaze directly at the viewer with half smiles, but their bodies are turned slightly towards each other creating a sense of intimacy and affection. The young girl has a bird perched on her finger, and she and her stepmother touch hands as the older woman holds a rounded fruit, a symbol of fecundity and fruitfulness. On her father's side, Marie Cesaire was a direct descendant of the founders of New Orleans; her grandfather was Mathurin Dreux who sailed from the Port of La Rochelle, France to Nouvelle Orleans in 1719 with the Concession of Sieur Mazy to join his brother Pierre who was already in the new city and is probably the Dreux mentioned in early documents as being with Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville (the several times Governor of French Louisiana) at the founding of the city in 1718. In recognition for their crucial role in the early formation of the city, in 1725 the two Dreux brothers were ceded their choice of land; they astutely, and somewhat surprisingly, chose land adjacent to the natural levee of Bayou St. John. They had seen firsthand the devastation of the Vieux Carre by a hurricane in 1722 and wisely wanted to settle on higher ground. For reasons never clearly determined, the brothers referred to the area as Gentilly (though some recent scholarship suggests it was initially Chantilly for the Duke of Bourbon's Chateau du Chantilly); they soon became known as the Sieurs de Gentilly and in virtually all subsequent documents and contracts they are referred to as such. After the two brothers wed - Mathurin to Claudine Francoise Hugot and Pierre to Anne Corbin Bachemin, the two families resided together on the Dreux Gentilly Plantation. The Plantation was to remain in the family until 1816. The brothers were involved in numerous profitable businesses including brick-making, timber harvesting and cattle raising. Mathurin's son, (Louis) Guy (Guido) Charles Dreux de Gentilly, was born in 1757. In 1777 he wed Pelagia Toutant-Beauregard with whom he had three children, of whom the child of this portrait was their only daughter. Pelagia was the daughter of Jacques Santiago Toutant-Beauregard and Marie Magdeline Cartier de Castanedo, and the maternal aunt of General Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard. Both the Dreux de Gentilly and Toutant-Beauregard families were known for socially advantageous marriages, and through her parents' siblings Marie-Cesaire had familial connections with nearly every prominent New Orleans family including: Livaudais, Bouligny, Villere, Foucher, Soniat (initially Saunhac), d'Estrehan, de Villiers, Fortier, Charbonnet, among others. Pelagia died shortly after the birth of her third child, and several years later Guy wed Genevieve Felicite Trudeau de Longueuil, the daughter of Jean-Louis Marie Trudeau de Longueuil and Jeanne-Felicite Dubreuil De Villars and the niece of Charles Trudeau dit Laveau (whose portrait and that of his wife Charlotte Perraud Trudeau by Salazar are in the collection of the Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane University). Through her stepmother, Marie-Cesaire had connections to the Le Moyne, Iberville and Bienville families. In 1804, Marie-Cesaire wed Dr. Edouard Verret, descendant of Nicolas Verret who was a prominent businessman and one of the founders of St. James Parish (then known as Saint-Jacques de Cabonocee). The couple were to have ten children who survived infancy. This portrait descended in the Verret family to her son Theodule Jules Verret, who served as Mayor of Mandeville; his son Honore Armadle Verret; his daughter Azelie Verret Bechac; and her daughter Eulalie Jeanne Bechac Fabacher. New Orleans Auction Galleries is honored to have the opportunity to auction this historically significant Salazar portrait.
Attributed to Jose Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza (Spanish, 1750-1802) "Portrait of Jose Antonio de Hoa (Spanish/Louisiana, b. 1752)", ca. 1795 oil on canvas unsigned, sitter and lender (Le Blanc) identified on remnant of early 20th-century label on stretcher, various other names and numbers faintly inscribed on stretchers. Framed. 36" x 28", framed 43" x 34-1/2" Provenance: Descended in the family of the sitter to his son, Juan Manuel de Hoa (1773/75-1821); his son, Pierre "Pedro" Silverion de Hoa (1802-1866); his daughter, Eulalie de Hoa Le Blanc (1839-1915); her daughters, Emilie de Hoa Le Blanc (1870-1941) and Marie de Hoa Le Blanc (1878-1954); [Probably] Succession of Marie de Hoa Le Blanc [Public auction], Ben P. Matthews Auctioneer, New Orleans, Louisiana, July 27-28, 1954; Private collection, New Orleans, Louisiana; Sold in these rooms, September 26, 1999, lot 1045; Private collection, Louisiana. Exhibited: 1903- Colonial Exhibit of the Louisiana Historical Society and Loan Exhibit of Members and Friends, New Orleans, December 20, 1903, no. 384. 1920-1925, and 1932, lent/exhibited, Louisiana State Museum, registered in Biennial Reports. 1953- Louisiana Purchase, An Exhibition Prepared by Louisiana State Museum in Co-operation with the Louisiana Landmarks Society [in] the Cabildo, New Orleans, p. 39. Notes: This fine portrait of Jose Antonio de Hoa, the Administrator of the Spanish Royal Custom House of Louisiana and Florida, painted in New Orleans ca. 1793-1795, exemplifies the New World, and bears close stylistic similarities to Salazar's portrait of Governor Sebastian Calvo de la Puerta, Marquis de Caso Calvo, under whom de Hoa served. In a broader context, this portrait presents not only an indelible window into the "Louisiana Territory" under three Sovereign nations, but also a portrait of a man whose grandchildren would become founding families of New Orleans - the de Hoas, Jourdains, De La Rondes and Le Blancs. The colony of Louisiana entered Spanish rule in 1763 following the treaty of Paris effectively ending the French and Indian War. King Carlos III bolstered military presence through a series of Bourbon Reforms that fortified the strategic port of New Orleans from British North America thus safeguarding Spain's Mexican mines that extended into Texas. Through the Reforms, large subsidies were dispersed by accomplished administrators and officials like de Hoa and Governor Bernardo de Galvez under whom he first served. A native of Santander Spain, de Hoa was married in 1774 to Antonia de Cacho, and his first son Juan Manuel de Hoa y Cacho, who later followed in his career path as a financial controller, was born within the year. By the early 1780s, de Hoa had been deployed to New Orleans and quickly rose to the appointment of "General Administrator of the Royal Revenues", a title he held until 1789 when he was promoted to "Administrator of the Spanish Royal Customs House" - a position he appears to have maintained through the embattled governorships of de Casa-Calvo and De Salcedo over increasing navigational conflicts with American settlers on the Mississippi River amidst pressure from Napoleon to cede Louisiana back to French control. Within a year of the Louisiana Purchase, de Hoa departs for Havana, Cuba and sells three properties he owned on St. Louis Street. Correspondence with de Hoa and his children in New Orleans persists through 1812. Following the death of his son Manuel de Hoa and his wife Rosalie Jourdain, the portrait descended to Pierre de Hoa and his wife Emilie De la Ronde, then to their daughter Eulalie de Hoa-Le Blanc, and her daughters Emilie and Marie. The Le Blancs exhibited the portrait of de Hoa several times over the course of 50 years, as well as the portrait of their mother/grandmother Emilie de la Ronde de Hoa attributed to Francois Bernard, and a portrait of their mother-in-law/grandmother Eliza Moussier Le Blanc by Jacques Amans. The Le Blanc sisters were pivotal figures in the art community of New Orleans at the turn of the century and throughout the first few decades of the 20th century. Both were graduates of Newcomb College and accomplished "art craftsmen" of the pottery trade, who continued their post-graduate studies as instructors. They were active members of several arts societies, including the Colonial Dames, The Arts and Crafts Clubs, and Louisiana Colonials. Marie, the more prolific of the two, received numerous honors and scholarships to study in Chicago, Boston and Paris, before settling back in New Orleans as a drawing instructor for New Orleans Public School. Upon Marie's death in 1954, her Estate was sold at public auction. Ben Matthews auctioneer advertised it as the sale of "One of Louisiana's Families Outstanding in Art" with the "finest portraits by eminent artists."
Jose Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza (Spanish, 1750-1802) "Portrait of Captain Anthony Knapp (1770-1832)", 1801 oil on canvas signed, dated and localized "New Orleans" in Latin lower right, frame backing affixed with handwritten label of family member. Framed. 38-1/2" x 30-1/2", framed 45-1/2" x 36-3/4" Provenance: Descended in the family of the sitter - with the son Humphrey Cook Knapp (1812-1898); his daughter Louisa Knapp Curtis (1851-1910); her daughter Mary Curtis Bok Zimbalist (1876-1970); her son Cary William Curtis (1905-1970) and his wife A. Margaret "Stormy" Bok (1920-2018); Estate of A. Margaret Bok, Rockport, Maine; Skinner, Boston, Massachusetts, August 12, 2019, lot 636; Private collection, Louisiana. Exhibited: Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary (1885) [Exhibition]. City Hall, Council Chamber, Newbury. June 1885 Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia [Loan]. 1970-1973 Literature: Celebration of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Settlement of Newbury [Massachusetts]: June 10, 1885, Newburyport: Historical Society of Old Newbury, 1885, p. 134. Notes: This imposing portrait of a young mariner painted in New Orleans exemplifies the New World; a rare portrait that merges maritime history and New England Founding Fathers with Colonial Louisiana via Caribbean trade routes. Knapp's legacy persists through the six generations through which this portrait has passed; his scions - mariners, newspaper magnates and philanthropists - were equally formative to the militia and culture of America. Captain Anthony Knapp was a direct descendent of the first settlers of Watertown, Massachusetts, later settling Essex County and the Connecticut Colony, that came over from England in 1630 with Sir Richard Saltonstall. His ancestors were all seamen following in the same exploratory path. His great grandfather, Isaac, a shipwright, served in the Quebec Expedition with the New England militia, sailing with the fleet of 700 at the Battle of Port Royal under Sir William Philips. His service was rewarded by land grants in the Canada township, and his grandfather died in the French and Indian War in the famous battle of St. Louisbourg which ended French colonialism in the Canadian Atlantic. Knapp's father, uncle William and great uncle Anthony served in the American Revolution. William commanded the New Hampshire brigantine Pallas in 1779, and Anthony, a lieutenant on the Massachusetts privateer Dalton, was captured by the British in 1777 and imprisoned in Mill Prison in England. Following his release, the elder Captain Anthony was joined at sea by the sitter, the younger Anthony Knapp until his death in 1792. As the fine accoutrements of the dapper Captain Knapp illustrate, he was a figurehead in the mercantile trade of the Louisiana Purchase, privateering through both Spanish and French rule. He was boarded by the English; he was a victim of pirateering; he courageously defended cargos and ports during maritime warfare. He later served in the War of 1812 and was severely wounded by a musket ball in the defense of Fort Eerie against the British in 1814. From 1794-1804, the young Captain Knapp appears throughout shipping news as an accomplished captain, commanding Caribbean-bound schooners, brigantines, frigates and armed barques from Massachusetts ports to Cuba, Curacao, Martinique and Trinidad with return sojourns through New Orleans - the largest port of the South that spearheaded the cotton and sugar exports of the New World to Europe. In New Orleans, Captain Knapp would have encountered the merchant shipper Abraham Kortright Brasher, Captain Samuel Lewis, and the eponymous Major-General James Wilkinson (later 1st Governor of Louisiana), all three of whom had their portraits painted by Salazar in the two years preceding this work. Through these contemporaries, Captain Knapp likely commissioned his portrait after two maritime victories in early 1800: the capture of nine barges and four hundred prisoners from the Haitian revolutionary Andre Rigaud in the War of the South; and a gunfire battle in which looting privateers were thwarted from pirating several sloops Knapp escorted en route to Boston back from Trinidad. Captain Knapp's portrait by Salazar, the most prominent portraitist in the city, was a statement; it was a debut into the "who's who" of the port of New Orleans. The imposing scale rendered in a classic roundel, the direct gaze and "Napoleonic" hand-in-waistcoat (a gesture of leadership) is further showcased by Knapp's dress. The fine silk pin-striped waistcoat in the patriotic red, white and blue of the new nation offset with dazzling herringbone weft, the embroidered silk bowtie with neckcloth, and the subtle, yet not so subtle, gold knop of his pocket-watch, firmly establish Knapp within the caliber of Salazar's other eminent sitters in government and military. The importance was not lost on his progeny. Four of Knapp's sons were naval captains; his son Humphrey through which this portrait passed was a shipping merchant whose daughter Louisa was one of the most prominent philanthropists of Philadelphia, who married the newspaper tycoon Cyrus Curtis. Together they launched one of the largest publishing empires that included the Saturday Evening Post, Ladies Home Journal, Jack and Jill, American Home and the Philadelphia Ledger, to name a few. She loaned the painting of Captain Anthony Knapp to commemorate the 200th Anniversary of Newbury, Massachusetts; her daughter and grandson, founders of the Curtis Institute of Music, loaned it again nearly a century later to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This rare portrait, a true testament of history, affords a rare glimpse into both Colonial Creole maritime trade and the genealogy of stalwart Founding Fathers.
Jose Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza (Mexican/New Orleans, c. 1750-1802), "Portrait of Marie Marguerite Reine Sarde Le Bourgeois (1752-1833)", 1797, oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right, inscribed in French en verso, 36 1/2 in. x 28 7/8 in., framed. Note: Marie Marguerite Reine lived through a tumultuous and fascinating period in Louisiana history and was one of the rare ladies depicted by the illustrious Jose Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza. Situated within Salazar's characteristic fictive oval, she is seated at a right angle to the viewer in a Louis XVI chair with her arm resting on a marble top commode. The scene likely was composed in Salazar's studio, based on the inclusion of similar furniture in other portraits, notably his depiction of Marie Jeanne Bozonnier De Marmillion Loubies (1768-1833). Marie Marguerite's costume includes a draped white shawl in a sumptuous fabric and white hair ribbon, along with delicately rendered gold earrings, onyx bead necklace and gold ring. At the age of forty-five when depicted here in 1797, Marie Marguerite was a woman of means, married to her second husband and mother to eleven surviving children. Marie Marguerite was the daughter of French immigrants Etienne Pierre Reine (c. 1729-1788) and Marie Françoise Renard (c. 1725-1795). She was one of ten children and spent her life in the New Orleans area. She married Nicolas Sarde (c. 1748-1780) in 1768 and had six children: Marie Francoise "Marguerite" Sarde (c. 1769-1835) who married Joseph Gillard (born c. 1760); Marguerite Jeanne "Manette" Sarde (c. 1772-1835) who married Urbain Gaiennie (1754-1824); Eulalie Alexandrine Sarde (c. 1774-1820) who married Francois "Joseph" Gaiennie (c. 1760-1804); Euphrosine Sarde (c. 1776-1862) who married Jean Gleises (c. 1770); Etienne Sarde (c. 1778), and Eugenie Sarde (c. 1781-1865) who married Jacques Nadaud (c. 1762-1822). Widowed in 1780, Marie Marguerite re-married to Pierre Le Bourgeois (c. 1752-1824) around 1784. Pierre Le Bourgeois had immigrated to the United States from Normandy, France in 1772, and he first settled in Philadelphia, where he engaged in the silk trade. In 1776, he moved to New Orleans to avoid disruptions to his business during the American Revolution and met the widow Marie Marguerite Sarde. The couple had five more children: Louis Le Bourgeois(1785-1837) who married Erasie Haydel Becnel (1782-1857); Etienne Pierre Le Bourgeois (c. 1787-1850) who married Louise Arthemise Matherne (c. 1806-1850); Adolestine "Celeste" Le Bourgeois (c. 1789-1853) who married Valery Armant (c. 1780-1862); Guillaume Henry Le Bourgeois (c. 1791); and Arnaud Le Bourgeois (c. 1797-1862) who married Catherine Aimee Boucry (c. 1806-1839). From a notable family tree, Marie Marguerite's father, Etienne Pierre Reine, served in the Militia Regiment of Louisiana under General Bernardo Galvez. Louis Le Bourgeois, her eldest son with her second husband, owned the original land and house in St. James Parish where Belmont Plantation was built after his death by his widow, Erasie Haydel Becnel Le Bourgeois. Belmont Plantation was located on the east bank of the Mississippi River directly opposite of the well-known Oak Alley Plantation. Belmont was described as "one of the finest plantation mansions in Louisiana, a magnificent example of a wealthy planter's home it typifies the luxurious scale of living during the golden era of the state." The house survived the Civil War only to be heavily damaged by the Belmont crevasse of the early 1890s and then destroyed by fire a year later. Ref.: Churchill, Charles Robert. Bernardo de Galvez: Services to the American Revolution. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, 1925. Chapin, Adèle Le Bourgeois. Their Trackless Way: A Book of Memories. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1932. Gontar, Cybèle, ed. Salazar: Portraits of Influence in Spanish New Orleans 1785-1802. New Orleans: Ogden Museum of Southern Art/ University of New Orleans Press, 2018. Seebold, Herman Boehm de Bachellé. Old Louisiana Plantation Homes and Family Trees. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 194
Josef Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza (Mexican/ Louisiana c. 1750-1802), "Marguerite Amirault Duplessis Alpuente y Ruiz (1761-1790) and son Francisco Bonaventure Alpuente y Ruiz (1783-1842)" or "Isabel Henriette de Chouriac de Alpuente y Ruiz (1773-1850) and Child," New Orleans, ca. 1785-1795, oil on canvas, Presented in a Gilt Frame, H.- 35 in., W.- 27 in. Provenance: Provenance: By Descent to Present Consignor: see attached literature below. Notes: The Yucatán-born painter Josef Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza (c. 1750-1802) arrived in Luisiana in 1784 and spent eighteen years creating portraits in New Orleans during the Spanish administration (1762-1802). The subject of a recent monographic exhibition at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art titled Salazar: Portraits of Influence in Spanish Louisiana, 1785-1802 (March 8-September 2, 2018), Josef Salazar is now recognized as North America's only known eighteenth-century Spanish colonial portraitist. Fewer than fifty Salazar portraits are documented and most remain in New Orleans collections. These highly rare likenesses of New Orleans leading military figures, merchants, and their families evoke a complex geopolitical scene within the Spanish borderlands. They broadly document French Creoles and Spanish military personnel and their families, but also Anglo-American speculators such as General James Wilkinson (1757-1825), who were increasingly present in that contested locale. Salazar, while not known to have been formally trained in his hometown of Mérida, generally reflects Mexican colonial portraiture in his works. His paintings, while comparatively naïve in North America, nevertheless fuse traditional neoclassical European compositional aspects (fictive oval surrounds and popular tropes) with competently executed visages and costume details. During the course of the exhibition Salazar: Portraits of Influence in Spanish Louisiana, 1785-1802, several previously undiscovered Salazar portraits were identified, including this pair. The first portrait shows Matias Francisco Alpuente y Ruiz (c. 1750-1812). A second represents either Matias first or second wife: Marguerite Duplessis Alpuente y Ruiz (1761-1790) with son Francisco Bonaventure Alpuente y Ruiz (1783-1842) or Isabelle de Chouriac (1773-1850) and another Alpuente child. The Alpuente family is among those identified in Stanley Clisby Arthur's Old Families of Louisiana (1931) as one of the earliest and most illustrious. Born in Requena de Campos (Palencia, Castille), Spain in about 1755, Matias entered Louisiana under the auspices of Alexander O'Reilly sometime between 1766 and 1780. Numerous colonial records in the collection of the Louisiana State Museum document the role of Matias de Alpuente as mayordomo de propios (financial administrator) at the Cabildo from 1788-1791. (See Din and Harkins, New Orleans Cabildo, 72 and Emily Clark, Masterless Mistresses: The New Orleans Ursulines and the Development of a New World Society, 1727-1834, 146) In St. Louis Cathedral, on December 31, 1780, he married Louisiana-born Marguerite Duplessis, the daughter of Tours-born François Clément Amirault Duplessis and New Orleans native Marie Sautièr. Seven children were born of this union and the eldest is presumed to be documented here: Francisco Bonaventure Alpuente y Ruiz (1783-1842). Matias Alpuente built a residence on a site at the corner of Rampart and Dumaine for this family. It was later rebuilt and occupied by generations of his descendants, along with other French Quarter sites, as documented in the Collins Diboll Vieux Carré Survey. Following the death of Marguerite Duplessis in 1790, Matias married Isabel de Chouriac (1773-1850), who bore four more children between 1796 and 1803. While plausible that the mother and child shown in Salazar's second portrait represents Isabel de Chouriac de Alpuente, it remains possible that it represents Marguerite de Alpuente given the direct patrilineal descent of this pair of portraits within the family of Matias and Marguerite's eldest son Captain Francisco Bonaventure Alpuente y Ruiz (1783-1842), who married Catherine Isabelle Millon (1777-1850) in 1813. Of Captain Francisco Bonaventure de Alpuente, Stanley Clisby Arthur notes: During the War of 1812, Don Francisco Bonaventura de Alpuente raised a company of volunteers for service in the campaign of 1814-15 against the English army then threatening New Orleans. An autographed letter of General Jackson orders Captain de Alpuente to English Lookout, in the vicinity of the Rigolets, as a "forlorn hope," with instructions to hold at all hazards until reinforcements could be sent. But the English advance against the city was made from below, and the historic battle was fought without giving Captain de Alpuente the opportunity of taking his men into action to participate in that wonderful and glorious victory. ("Alpuente Family," Arthur, 1931, 16-17) At the time of this mission, Captain Alpuente's eldest son Dr. François Ruiz Alpuente (1814-1876) was born on July 4, 1814 in a new residence at the site of Matias's home at Rampart and Dumaine. Later educated at St. Joseph's College at Bardstown, Kentucky, François subsequently studied medicine in Paris. Later Dr. Alpuente established a hospital on Magazine Street and authored an early treatise on obstetrics based on his extensive practice of nearly forty years (see also New Orleans Medical Surgical Journal, Vol. 26 (1873-4). From Dr. Alpuente, these portraits descended to his daughter Marie Mathilde Alpuente Bailey (1843-1914) and to his granddaughter Mathilde Antoinette Bailey Moore (1882-1960) Moore), and thus by descent to the present consignors. Importantly, both portraits are documented in The Times-Democrat of January 24, 1892, on page twelve in a column titled "Louisiana Families III." This article is written by Charles Patton Dimitry, himself a descendant of Salazar's noteworthy subject Marianne Céleste Dragon Dimitry (1777-1856), a woman of Greek, French Canadian, African, and American Indian descent, and whose own identity was the subject of a famous nineteenth-century trial (Gontar, Salazar: Portraits of Influence, 2018, p. 150-153). Dimitry's article includes sketches of the Alpuente portraits taken in the home of Mathilde Alpuente Bailey on St. Andrew Street in New Orleans. The three-quarter sleeved white gown worn by Madame Alpuente y Ruiz is akin to that worn by her contemporary Marianne Dragon Dimitry. For example, corset-like bodices on these gowns cover lace-edged chemises below. Salazar's painterly style is evident in the loose brushwork comprising this clothing, particularly in the Alpuente infant's gown. Further, both portraits bear traces of Salazar's characteristic red priming layer. All subjects' composed expressions and formal bearing reflect the psychological distancing generally characteristic of such colonial portraiture. Finally, Salazar's oeuvre includes several Madonna-like portraits to which the image of Madame Alpuente is distinctly similar in composition. Salazar's likeness of the uniformed Matias Alpuente y Ruiz reflects his roles as a "carabinier" (cavalry man with rifle) and Cabildo official prior to 1792. Spanish cavalry regiments wore red or white coats. Alpuente's scarlet jacket with white, gold-trimmed lapels reflects that of the Distinguished Company of Carabiniers Militia of New Orleans ca. 1780. This uniform is illustrated by F. Lull in José Maria Bueno's The Army of Spain in the American Revolution and New World (see also René Chartrand and David Rickman, The Spanish Army in North America, 1700-1793, 2011). For the complete biography of Josef Salazar and a catalogue of his known works see Cybèle Gontar, ed., Salazar: Portraits of Influence in Spanish New Orleans, 1785-1802 (University of New Orleans Press and Ogden Museum of Southern Art, 2018).
Josef Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza (Mexican/ Louisiana c. 1750-1802), "Matias Francisco Alpuente y Ruiz (1750-1812)", New Orleans, ca. 1785-1795, member of the distinguished Caribiner Cavaly & "Financial Administrator" of New Orleans, oil on canvas, presented in a Carved Gilt frame, H.- 36 1/2 in., W.- 28 1/2 in. Provenance: By Descent to Present Consignor: see attached literature below. Notes: The Yucatán-born painter Josef Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza (c. 1750-1802) arrived in Luisiana in 1784 and spent eighteen years creating portraits in New Orleans during the Spanish administration (1762-1802). The subject of a recent monographic exhibition at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art titled Salazar: Portraits of Influence in Spanish Louisiana, 1785-1802 (March 8-September 2, 2018), Josef Salazar is now recognized as North America's only known eighteenth-century Spanish colonial portraitist. Fewer than fifty Salazar portraits are documented and most remain in New Orleans collections. These highly rare likenesses of New Orleans leading military figures, merchants, and their families evoke a complex geopolitical scene within the Spanish borderlands. They broadly document French Creoles and Spanish military personnel and their families, but also Anglo-American speculators such as General James Wilkinson (1757-1825), who were increasingly present in that contested locale. Salazar, while not known to have been formally trained in his hometown of Mérida, generally reflects Mexican colonial portraiture in his works. His paintings, while comparatively naïve in North America, nevertheless fuse traditional neoclassical European compositional aspects (fictive oval surrounds and popular tropes) with competently executed visages and costume details. During the course of the exhibition Salazar: Portraits of Influence in Spanish Louisiana, 1785-1802, several previously undiscovered Salazar portraits were identified, including this pair. The first portrait shows Matias Francisco Alpuente y Ruiz (c. 1750-1812). The Alpuente family is among those identified in Stanley Clisby Arthur's Old Families of Louisiana (1931) as one of the earliest and most illustrious. Born in Requena de Campos (Palencia, Castille), Spain in about 1755, Matias entered Louisiana under the auspices of Alexander O'Reilly sometime between 1766 and 1780. Numerous colonial records in the collection of the Louisiana State Museum document the role of Matias de Alpuente as mayordomo de propios (financial administrator) at the Cabildo from 1788-1791. (See Din and Harkins, New Orleans Cabildo, 72 and Emily Clark, Masterless Mistresses: The New Orleans Ursulines and the Development of a New World Society, 1727-1834, 146) In St. Louis Cathedral, on December 31, 1780, he married Louisiana-born Marguerite Duplessis, the daughter of Tours-born François Clément Amirault Duplessis and New Orleans native Marie Sautièr. Seven children were born of this union and the eldest is presumed to be documented here: Francisco Bonaventure Alpuente y Ruiz (1783-1842). Matias Alpuente built a residence on a site at the corner of Rampart and Dumaine for this family. It was later rebuilt and occupied by generations of his descendants, along with other French Quarter sites, as documented in the Collins Diboll Vieux Carré Survey. Following the death of Marguerite Duplessis in 1790, Matias married Isabel de Chouriac (1773-1850), who bore four more children between 1796 and 1803. While plausible that the mother and child shown in Salazar's second portrait represents Isabel de Chouriac de Alpuente, it remains possible that it represents Marguerite de Alpuente given the direct patrilineal descent of this pair of portraits within the family of Matias and Marguerite's eldest son Captain Francisco Bonaventure Alpuente y Ruiz (1783-1842), who married Catherine Isabelle Millon (1777-1850) in 1813. Of Captain Francisco Bonaventure de Alpuente, Stanley Clisby Arthur notes: During the War of 1812, Don Francisco Bonaventura de Alpuente raised a company of volunteers for service in the campaign of 1814-15 against the English army then threatening New Orleans. An autographed letter of General Jackson orders Captain de Alpuente to English Lookout, in the vicinity of the Rigolets, as a "forlorn hope," with instructions to hold at all hazards until reinforcements could be sent. But the English advance against the city was made from below, and the historic battle was fought without giving Captain de Alpuente the opportunity of taking his men into action to participate in that wonderful and glorious victory. ("Alpuente Family," Arthur, 1931, 16-17) At the time of this mission, Captain Alpuente's eldest son Dr. François Ruiz Alpuente (1814-1876) was born on July 4, 1814 in a new residence at the site of Matias's home at Rampart and Dumaine. Later educated at St. Joseph's College at Bardstown, Kentucky, François subsequently studied medicine in Paris. Later Dr. Alpuente established a hospital on Magazine Street and authored an early treatise on obstetrics based on his extensive practice of nearly forty years (see also New Orleans Medical Surgical Journal, Vol. 26 (1873-4). From Dr. Alpuente, these portraits descended to his daughter Marie Mathilde Alpuente Bailey (1843-1914) and to his granddaughter Mathilde Antoinette Bailey Moore (1882-1960) Moore), and thus by descent to the present consignors. Importantly, both portraits are documented in The Times-Democrat of January 24, 1892, on page twelve in a column titled "Louisiana Families III." This article is written by Charles Patton Dimitry, himself a descendant of Salazar's noteworthy subject Marianne Céleste Dragon Dimitry (1777-1856), a woman of Greek, French Canadian, African, and American Indian descent, and whose own identity was the subject of a famous nineteenth-century trial (Gontar, Salazar: Portraits of Influence, 2018, p. 150-153). Dimitry's article includes sketches of the Alpuente portraits taken in the home of Mathilde Alpuente Bailey on St. Andrew Street in New Orleans. The three-quarter sleeved white gown worn by Madame Alpuente y Ruiz is akin to that worn by her contemporary Marianne Dragon Dimitry. For example, corset-like bodices on these gowns cover lace-edged chemises below. Salazar's painterly style is evident in the loose brushwork comprising this clothing, particularly in the Alpuente infant's gown. Further, both portraits bear traces of Salazar's characteristic red priming layer. All subjects' composed expressions and formal bearing reflect the psychological distancing generally characteristic of such colonial portraiture. Finally, Salazar's oeuvre includes several Madonna-like portraits to which the image of Madame Alpuente is distinctly similar in composition. Salazar's likeness of the uniformed Matias Alpuente y Ruiz reflects his roles as a "carabinier" (cavalry man with rifle) and Cabildo official prior to 1792. Spanish cavalry regiments wore red or white coats. Alpuente's scarlet jacket with white, gold-trimmed lapels reflects that of the Distinguished Company of Carabiniers Militia of New Orleans ca. 1780. This uniform is illustrated by F. Lull in José Maria Bueno's The Army of Spain in the American Revolution and New World (see also René Chartrand and David Rickman, The Spanish Army in North America, 1700-1793, 2011). For the complete biography of Josef Salazar and a catalogue of his known works see Cybèle Gontar, ed., Salazar: Portraits of Influence in Spanish New Orleans, 1785-1802 (University of New Orleans Press and Ogden Museum of Southern Art, 2018).
José Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza (Mexican/New Orleans, c. 1750-1802), "Portrait of a New England Gentleman", oil on canvas, unsigned, 40 1/4 in. x 31 1/4 in., framed. Note: The canvas offered here by Jose Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza, reputedly acquired by a Maine collector from an estate in Newburyport, Massachusetts, features a handsome gentleman in a late 18th century-style frock coat and cravat. The work typifies the archetypal portrait Salazar painted at the turn of the 18th century with its telling red ochre background as well the characteristic pose and composition often used by the artist. Salazar was known to have painted top military figures, sea captains, and wealthy merchants, many of whom had come to New Orleans from other locales for business and political purposes. The portraits were frequently sent back to the prominent families in the Northeast from which the sitters originated, likely the history of this work. The standing portrait at waist-length with one hand in the sitters coat had become an iconic pose by the late 1700s, and Salazar implemented it often for his prominent sitters. Three known paintings by Salazar, Colonel Thomas Butler, Jr., sold in these rooms in February 2017, Miguel Dragon, located at the Louisiana State Museum, and the Portrait of a Bristol, Rhode Island Gentleman, all have nearly identical poses, as well as the same trompe loeil painted oval seen in the painting offered here. Ref.: Gontar, Cybe?le T. Salazar: Portraits of Influence in Spanish New Orleans, 1785-1802. New Orleans: Ogden Museum of Southern Art, 2018.
Attributed to Jose Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza (Mexico, c. mid-1700's-1802, active New Orleans c. 1782-1802), "Captain Samuel Lewis (1764-1820), oil on canvas, unsigned, written in old print en verso on stretcher: "Portrait of Cap. Lewis painted by Salazar, N. Orleans, 1801", also a handwritten paper label en verso "Captain Samuel Lewis, born December 1764, died October 17, 1820, father of Charles S. Lewis", 30 in. x 25 in., in an antique giltwood frame.
