Mexican Hall

The Portrait of Mrs. Amparo Rugarcia de Espinosa is a painting of refined simplicity. The model, seated on a purple cloth and accompanied by calla lilies, slightly tilts her face, outlining a smile. She is wearing a black dress and jewelry decorated with pearls.  Women were a fundamental theme in the artistic conception of Diego Rivera. A good share of the women who inhabit his public works are creative powers, inspirations of life.

This landscape includes a panoramic perspective of southeast of the Valley of Mexico from an elevated site to the south of it, possibly the town of San Miguel Topilejo, on the road to Cuernavaca. In the distance the profile of the mountains can be made out where at the far right the Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl volcanoes can be seen, as can the Tlaloc and Telapon toward the center. The snowy peak of Iztaccihuatl can be perceived without difficulty, while the cone of Popocatepetl almost melts, due to the atmospheric effect, into an overcast sky with white, long and thin clouds.  

In December 1857, as part of the tenth exhibition of the Academia de San Carlos, Eugenio Landesio exhibited two paintings representing the hacienda of Matlala, located in Tierra Caliente, between Izucar de Matamoros and Atlixco. One painting was a panoramic view of the hacienda and the other was of the great series of arches that supplied water. The second piece includes a portrait of its owner, the Basque architect Lorenzo Martinez de la Hidalga y Musitu (1810-1872), accompanied by his family.

The painting  shows a perspective of Toledo and the Tagus River from an elevated site southeast of the city, shining among the blue intensity of the sky and river. Diego Rivera left for Europe in 1907 and remained there for fourteen years, with a brief interlude between 1910 to 1911 when he traveled to Mexico to participate in an exhibition of the National School of Fine Arts.

The identification of this personage is not an easy task because it lacks its symbols. However, when taking into account its asexual appearance, the type of clothing and the fact that despite not carrying warrior armor, nor wings, or any external element that could have held them, such as a kind of fastener, it is possible the figure is an angel or perhaps even an archangel. The estofado displayed a design with decorations typical of the eighteenth century, on which were painted motifs with brush tip that outlined the picado de lustre (chiseling on burnished gold) that was carried out with a simple awl.

This pair of quicksilver coated mirrors of undoubted beauty and high artistic quality are very significant works. They were made in the eighteenth century. In houses and other places of power, the use of mirrors and cornucopias was fundamental as at the same time these objects provided social prestige--remember that mirrors and glass were very expensive pieces--the moons refracted the light of the candles, producing other luminous sources in the internal spaces, which were almost always poorly lit.   

It is necessary to establish that the desk mentioned has been named here for the first time as the, "Desk of Perseus and Atlas with the golden tree orchard", as these are the figures that are located in the ovule that occupies the center of the top of this piece of furniture, and play a dominant role compared to the rest of the mythological scenes that appear on the desk. Also attributed here for the first time is the authorship of the of the furniture item to the artist Manuel de la Cerda, and the formal connections of this work with the desk of the same artist that is conserved in the Hispanic Society of New York are also important, as both works are very similar in structure and technique. 

Office desks including marquetry of precious woods predominate in nineteenth century furniture production. It should be noted that there were offices in private homes, in addition to those located in public buildings the government. It is possible, but will have to be corroborated, that this piece of furniture was made in the city of Puebla, where the cabinetmakers of that century made beautiful examples of such furniture for personal writing.   

Oval shaped piece in a silver plate nailed onto a wooden interior structure, with an embossed and molded frame. Because of its religious symbolism, it could also have been a sacristy mirror or the framework of a devotional painting substituted later by the glass.