The Spanish colonial period in South America saw artists develop the subgenre of official portraiture, or portraits of key individuals in the continent’s viceregal governments. Although these portraits appeared to illustrate a narrative of imperial splendor and absolutist governance, they instead became a visual record of the local history that emerged during the colonial occupation.Using the official portrait collections accumulated between 1542 and 1830 in Lima, Buenos Aires, and BogotÁ as a lens, Pictured Politics explores how official portraiture originated and evolved to become an essential component in the construction of Ibero-American political relationships. Through the surviving portraits and archival evidence-including political treatises, travel accounts, and early periodicals-Emily Engel demonstrates that these official portraits not only belie a singular interpretation as tools of imperial domination but also visualize the continent's multilayered history of colonial occupation. The first stand alone analysis of South American portraiture, Pictured Politics brings to light the historical relevance of political portraits in crafting the history of South American colonialism.

This volume showcases dynamic developments in the field of manuscript research that go beyond traditional textual, iconographic, or codicological studies. Using state-of-the-art conservation technologies, scholars investigate how four manuscripts--the Galvin Mur a, the Getty Mur a, the Florentine Codex, and the Relaci n de Michoac n--were created and demonstrate why these objects must be studied in a comparative context. The forensic study of manuscripts provides art historians, anthropologists, curators, and conservators with effective methods for determining authorship, identifying technical innovations, and contextualizing illustrated histories. This information, in turn, allows for more nuanced arguments that transcend the information that the written texts and painted images themselves provide. The book encourages scholars to think broadly about the manuscripts of colonial Mexico and Peru in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and employ new techniques and methods of research.

The Spanish colonial period in South America saw artists develop the subgenre of official portraiture, or portraits of key individuals in the continent’s viceregal governments. Although these portraits appeared to illustrate a narrative of imperial splendor and absolutist governance, they instead became a visual record of the local history that emerged during the colonial occupation.Using the official portrait collections accumulated between 1542 and 1830 in Lima, Buenos Aires, and BogotÁ as a lens, Pictured Politics explores how official portraiture originated and evolved to become an essential component in the construction of Ibero-American political relationships. Through the surviving portraits and archival evidence-including political treatises, travel accounts, and early periodicals-Emily Engel demonstrates that these official portraits not only belie a singular interpretation as tools of imperial domination but also visualize the continent's multilayered history of colonial occupation. The first stand alone analysis of South American portraiture, Pictured Politics brings to light the historical relevance of political portraits in crafting the history of South American colonialism.

This volume showcases dynamic developments in the field of manuscript research that go beyond traditional textual, iconographic, or codicological studies. Using state-of-the-art conservation technologies, scholars investigate how four manuscripts--the Galvin Mur a, the Getty Mur a, the Florentine Codex, and the Relaci n de Michoac n--were created and demonstrate why these objects must be studied in a comparative context. The forensic study of manuscripts provides art historians, anthropologists, curators, and conservators with effective methods for determining authorship, identifying technical innovations, and contextualizing illustrated histories. This information, in turn, allows for more nuanced arguments that transcend the information that the written texts and painted images themselves provide. The book encourages scholars to think broadly about the manuscripts of colonial Mexico and Peru in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and employ new techniques and methods of research.