PERUVIAN SCHOOL, 18th-19th Century

Saint Martín de Porres

Oil on canvas
9 x 6 ⅝ inches (22.9 x 16.8 cm)

Provenance:

Private Collection, New York, until 2022.

Martín de Porres was born in Lima in 1579, the illegitimate son of a Spanish-American father, Juan de Porras, and Ana Velázquez, a formerly enslaved woman of African descent from Panama. Abandoned by his father, Martín grew up in poverty. He was apprenticed to a barber-surgeon, but soon entered the Dominican Convent of El Rosario in Lima, first as a servant, then an almoner, and eventually a lay brother. While his ancestry prohibited his taking full orders, a life of profound devotion, care for the sick, and extreme acts of charity was accompanied by miracles that led to widespread popular veneration after his death in 1639, beatification in 1837, and canonization in 1962. Today Martín de Porres is the patron saint of mixed-race people, barbers, health workers, and those seeking racial harmony in the Catholic Church. He is also well known for his love of animals.

No contemporary portrait of Martín de Porres is known, but the earliest images of him from the late 17th century share the same iconographic features seen in this work, painted by an anonymous late 18th or 19th-century Peruvian artist. He is depicted as a young man wearing a Dominican habit, the black-and-white colors alluding as well to his mixed-race. The future saint has a halo reflecting popular veneration of him, and he is shown holding a broom—his traditional symbol, which reflected the menial work performed by a good part of the freed and enslaved Afro-Peruvians that then comprised nearly 50% of Lima’s population. He wears the rosary, to which his convent was dedicated, and carries a basket of bread, denoting saintly charity, both associated with the Dominican Order.