New England / New Spain Portraiture in the Colonial Americas 1492-1850

Michael Schreffler (University of Notre Dame) opens the volume with a discussion of portraits of Corts and Moctezuma in sixteenth-century New Spain. Clare Kunny (Art Muse, Los Angeles) examines portraits of Antonio de Mendoza (1490-1552), the first viceroy of Mexico. Susan Rather (University of Texas, Austin) analyzes portraiture in colonial British America and landscapes included in them. Karl Kusserow (Princeton University Art Museum) explores selfhood and surroundings in British American portraits.

Paula Mues Orts (National School of Conservation, Mexico) examines the portrait series commissioned and displayed in colonial Mexico by religious and civic organizations as a claim to power and prestige. James Middleton (independent scholar, New York) discusses clothing and accessories in New Spanish portraiture that allow a more precise dating of works. Jennifer Van Horn (George Mason University) follows the trans-Atlantic travels of portraitist Joseph Blackburn from England to New England and Bermuda. Kaylin Weber (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston) explores the career of American Benjamin West and his trans-Atlantic move from Boston to London.

Elizabeth Kornhauser (Metropolitan Museum of Art) addresses the portraits of New England painter Ralph Earl, who struggled to fashion a new style for the young American republic. Michael Brown (San Diego Museum of Art) closes the volume by comparing the fate of portraits from New England and New Spain in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America.