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Portrait of María Thomasa de Gálvez y Varón

ca. 1717–19
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 755
This portrait commemorates the marriage of seventeen-year-old María Thomasa de Gálvez, the creole daughter of a prosperous Guatemalan merchant, to Manuel de Porras, a Spanish colonial official. Bejeweled and lavishly dressed in a gown of “bizarre” silk brocade, a costly textile imported from Europe, the sitter is portrayed in a palatial interior that may be the Gálvez family residence in Santiago (present-day Antigua). The roses and the folded fan she holds are traditional symbols of matrimony. Married in 1717, Thomasa was widowed four years later and, rather than remarry, she withdrew to a nearby convent of Conceptionist nuns. She remained there until 1773, when a catastrophic earthquake destroyed the city. Her portrait vividly registers the short-lived union and fleeting fortunes of a wealthy bride portrayed amid the splendor of a once-flourishing city, ruined by natural disasters to the point of abandonment.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Portrait of María Thomasa de Gálvez y Varón
  • Artist: Unidentified Guatemalan artist, 18th century
  • Date: ca. 1717–19
  • Geography: Country of Origin Guatemala
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: Unframed: 77 1/2 × 46 1/2 in. (196.9 × 118.1 cm)
    Framed: 79 1/2 × 50 3/8 in. (202 × 128 cm)
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Pfeiffer, Museum Acquisitions, Morris K. Jesup, and Maria DeWitt Jesup Funds; Met Americas Council, Martha J. Fleischman, Anthony W. and Lulu C. Wang, and Rodolfito Rothschild Gifts, 2026
  • Object Number: 2026.446
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing

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