José Moreno Carbonero (1858-1942)
Oil on canvas, H. 32.2 x W. 26 cm
Moreno Carbonero was born, brought up and studied in Malaga, Spain. In 1875, after a two-year stay in Morocco, he moved to Paris on a grant from the Malaga Provincial Council. He joined the studio of Jean-Léon Gérôme. A regular visitor, the famous art dealer Adolphe Goupil commissioned his first works, mainly small genre subject paintings. Between 1881 and 1884, Moreno Carbonero lived in Rome before moving to Madrid. There, he achieved his first success with his painting The Conversion of the Duke of Gandia, which is now in the Prado Museum. From then on, the artist specialized in history paintings, often on a large scale; the best example is The Entry of Roger de Flor into Constantinople, painted for the Madrid Senate in 1888, which hasn’t moved ever since. Besides being a historical painter, the artist was also a portraitist, painting elegant portraits of Madrid's high society (see, for instance, Purificacion Fontan, Marquise del Pazo de la Merced, 1908, Prado Museum, Madrid).
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Argentine government was preparing to celebrate the May Revolution, which started on May 18, 1810, and led to the independence of Argentina. The municipality of Buenos Aires, joining in the celebration, commissioned a historical painting dedicated to the founding of the capital from José Moreno Carbonero. Under time pressure, Moreno Carbonero produced a work with which he was dissatisfied and criticized when he arrived in Argentina in 1910. For this reason, in 1922, he asked for the work to be returned to him to correct it. He studied the city's history, the site and the event depicted in situ and made substantial changes to make the painting more historically accurate. The definitive work, wholly reworked, was placed in the municipal palace in 1924. It can still be admired in its original place.
The city of Buenos Aires was founded on June 11, 1580, by Juan de Garay under the name of the 'Santissima Trinidad y Puerto de Sant Maria del Buen Ayre'. In Moreno Carbonero's painting, Juan de Garay, in the centre of the composition, raises his sword before the foundation pillar. On the right, the notary Pedro de Xeres signs the foundation act; on the left, the friar Juan de Rivadeneira raises the cross, and the alderman Don Pedro de Quirós carries the royal standard. All around, men in arms can be seen, as well as representatives of the native people from the area, including a man from the Guarani ethnic group. The present painting is a preparatory sketch of the head of this figure.
