Historia y Sociedad (Jul 2018)

From abandoned child to painter in Quito and Popayán

  • Orián Jiménez Meneses,
  • Daniela Vásquez Pino

DOI
https://doi.org/10.15446/hys.n35.71257
Journal volume & issue
no. 35
pp. 271 – 288

Abstract

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The testaments and codicil transcribed and analyzed in this section belong to the painter Pedro Tello, native of Quito and neighbor of Popayán. These documents were written in the mid-18th century and the early 19th century. The particular life of Pedro Tello made it possible to find him in these two localities and confirm that he is one of the many artists of the Latin American colonial period who have remained in oblivion, both in Ecuadorian and Colombian historiography. Despite of having been “exposed [abandoned] to the doors” of Juan Antonio Tello, Pedro had a good life, thanks to his craft as a painter, and he owned workshops and apprentices in both cities. He acquired enough assets to support his wife María Ventura de los Cobos, to buy a house in Popayán and to leave a legacy to his mother, Tomasa Rosales. Our interest is to show the variety of data obtained by crossing information from the payanese testaments and the Quito deeds. By doing so, Pedro’s life no longer appears divided by the current national boundaries and, as we find more documents that reinforce our knowledge of his itinerary, business, charity and knowledge, we acquire a complete picture of his career. This information is part of the documentary tracking that we carried out on artists and craft workers during the 17th and 18th centuries in the southwest of the New Kingdom of Granada and the Royal Audience of Quito.

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