Acquisition Highlight: Portrait of Joaquín Arias de Saavedra y Santa Cruz, 1785

A new addition to the Foundation’s collection of artwork from the Spanish colonial period, this nearly life-sized portrait depicts Joaquín Arias de Saavedra y Santa Cruz, 5th Marquis of Moscoso and 13th Count of Castellar. The cartouche in the lower right corner of the painting describes Joaquín’s lineage. Joaquín’s grandfather was a Spanish nobleman who came from Sevilla to Cuzco, Peru in the 1670s. After growing up in the Viceroyalty of Peru, an area that contained most of Spanish-governed South America, in 1770 Joaquín left Peru permanently to return to Sevilla, Spain, where he married and had five children.

This portrait joins 10 other portraits from the Spanish colonial period in the Thoma Foundation collection. Works from this period from South America are protected by the 1970 UNESCO Cultural Property Convention, an international agreement dedicated to fighting illicit trafficking of cultural property. Before any artwork from the Spanish colonial period is considered for acquisition, the Foundation conducts extensive research into the provenance of the artwork to ensure that it does not violate the 1970 UNESCO agreement.  In the case of this portrait, the painting had remained in the ownership of Joaquín’s family for over 200 years!