![]() ![]() We contextualize our study within the broader vibrant cultural and intellectual milieux of late seventeenth-century Mexico City characterized by the Hispanic Baroque with its characteristic embrace of novelty, deception, illusion, exuberance, and spectacle, and which nurtured creative word play, puzzles, anagrams, acrostics, emblems and allegories. ![]() In so doing we offer an alternative interpretation and approach to this portrait. Hidden in Plain Sight is the first study to identify the presence of a hidden enigma in Miranda’s portrait of Sor Juana. Source: Patrimonio de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Image from Wikimedia commons 1 – Juan de Miranda, “Portrait of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.” c. We address this discovery in greater detail in Part 2 of this project’s description.įig. Based on the fortunate discovery of two photographs of this lost portrait during our archival and digital research, however, we can confirm that Miranda painted two portraits of Sor Juana. The assumption is that if such a portrait ever existed, its whereabouts are currently unknown. An alternative explanation is that Miranda painted a second version of the extant portrait that included two inscriptions – the biographical one and the one that identifies the patron and is dated 1713. Scholars have largely discounted suggestions that the second “lost” inscription and date originally appeared on the extant portrait but was erased due to damage or faulty restoration (Ruiz Gomar, 2004). As such, depending on who you read on the matter (usually very reputable sources), the extant portrait may or may not be dated 1713 and authors may or may not assume the patron’s identity. Evidence of a second “lost” inscription that identifies both patron and a date of 1713 has added uncertainty as to which date to attribute to the undated extant portrait as well as its patron’s identity: “Mother María Gertrudis de Santa Eustaquio, her daughter and Accountant, gave this portrait of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz to the Accounting Office of our convent. Interpretation of the portrait has also been complicated by the fact that it is signed by Miranda but it is not dated. It is this “bewildering singularity” that requires deeper reflection and is the focus of our study. We are left with the impression of its “bewildering singularity” (Perry, 2012, 7). Rather, Miranda’s portrait is more “reminiscent of…portraits of male prelates and literary figures” (Burke, 1990, 354), influenced by Spanish Hapsburg court portraiture. There appears, however, to be a strong consensus about the unusual composition of Miranda’s portrait since it does not employ the conventional iconography associated with portraits of female religious. Scholars have approached the portrait from varying perspectives and provide valuable insights into different aspects of its creation and interpretation: some, less enthusiastic about the portrait’s aesthetic merits, nevertheless acknowledge its importance as a prototype for subsequent portraits of Sor Juana others debate how the artist navigates the spiritual and worldly personas of Sor Juana and the tensions between the two. Standing at her writing table in her library-cell of the convent of San Jerónimo in Mexico City, the portrait includes a biographical inscription that appears on the side of her desk, a sonnet, Verde embeleso, that Sor Juana appears to have just finished composing, as well as the three published volumes of her work that appear behind the inkwells. The life-size portrait (75.19 x 48.42 inches) currently hangs in the rectoría of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. 1700) by Juan de Miranda (c.1667?-1714) of the acclaimed Mexican nun and poet, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (c.1648?-1695) (fig. Hidden in Plain Sight is a short book that reassesses the first known full length extant portrait (c. This article is the first of two parts in a series entitled, Hidden in Plain Sight: Reflections On A Mexican Baroque Enigma. Smith (Independent Scholar, University Affiliate Research Fellow-Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies) By Susan Deans-Smith (Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Texas at Austin) and John W. ![]()
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