- Object Name
- Maker
- Place Made
- Title
De India y Zambaigo, Albarazado
- Date
late 1700s
- Materials
Oil on copper
- Dimensions
12 in x 15 in (30.48 cm x 38.1 cm)
- Credit Line
Gift of Mr. Charles F. Lummis.
- Object ID
457.G.58
-
- Institution
Southwest Museum of the American Indian Collection, Autry Museum of the American West
-
- Category
Art and Artifacts
- Remarks
Painting, DE INDIA Y ZAMBAIGO, ALBARAZADO, unknown artist, late 1700s. This painting is known as a casta or caste, painting. It shows a family in which the mother is Indian and the father is Zambaigo, or of mixed Indian and African heritage. Castas paintings of the eighteenth century illustrate an attempt to impose order on the increasingly mixed population of New Spain, or Mexico. The Spanish used elaborate systems of racial names, or castas, to create a social and political hierarchy in Mexico. The paintings name each combination and show to which social class that caste should belong. In this case, the subjects are shown tanning leather, a lower-class job.
- Publication
Caste, race, and class in Spanish California by Vladimir Guerrero. Page 3