José de Alcíbar (Mexico City, 1730 - 1803) 'Allegory of Africa' Oil on canvas. 132 x 96 cm.   José de Alcíbar was one of the main exponents of New Spain painting in the second half of the 18th century. Born circa 1730, Alcíbar was remarkable in his ability to portray the ethnic and cultural diversity of New Spain and to accurately depict the physical details and symbolic elements in his characters, something that can be seen in his numerous casta paintings. These artworks, executed in a style that combines European influences with a local sensibility, are a key reference to understanding why we are attributing the painting we are analyzing to him. This is an elegant and striking painting showing one of the personifications of one of the four continents then known (Europe, Asia, Africa and America). Africa is represented here by a standing black character, who turns his head slightly to the left, as if paying attention to a voice calling him. With frizzy, curly hair, richly dressed in the manner of eighteenth-century Europe, showing wealth and abundance, with  clothing which is richly brocaded and trimmed on the sleeves and large red cloak.  The character also wears a necklace of a string of pearls and other jewelry, in the form of earrings.  They hold a sword in their right hand and a bow and arrows with their left. A Novo-Hispanic painting that helps us to gain a little more understanding of the sense that geographical allegories had in Renaissance and Baroque art. It was usually a way of demonstrating the confines of a given empire, and true to the mentality of the time, depicting a monarchy surrounded by continents was a clear expression of power, expressing that their power extended throughout the world. One of Alcíbar's best known paintings is “From Indian and Mestiza, Coyote” and “From Spaniard and Morisca, Albino”, which are in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. These paintings are part of the casta tradition, a pictorial genre that developed in New Spain and was intended to visually classify the different racial mixtures that arose from contact between Europeans, Africans and Indians. These works stand out for their detailed observation of the costumes, textures and gestures of the characters, something that is also evident in the painting of the “Allegory of Africa” that we have here. As in his casta paintings, Alcíbar uses chiaroscuro in “Allegory of Africa” to model the figure using strong contrast between light and shadows, giving it three-dimensional volume and reinforcing its presence in the composition. The depiction of clothing, with its folds, textures and finely worked details, is another characteristic shared with Alcíbar's casta paintings. The precision in the texture of the fabrics, the brilliance of the jewels and the meticulous depiction of the jewelry suggest the expert hand of a painter accustomed to capturing the material and symbolic wealth of his characters. The painting is significant not only for its artistic quality, but also for its ability to reflect colonial-era concerns and ideologies regarding ethnic diversity and the depiction of figures descended from Africa. This connection to Alcíbar's casta paintings, especially those in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, reinforces the attribution of the work and underscores the importance of José de Alcíbar as a key painter in the portrayal of racial diversity in New Spain.  As the Museo del Prado states in their biographical factsheet, Alcíbar was ‘One of the most active and representative artists of the painting scene in Mexico City during the second half of the 18th century. He received numerous commissions, especially for religious paintings for various churches and portraits of leading figures in Mexican society, with a personal style that was not unrelated to the artistic processes taking place in the metropolis. Mexico City in the 18th century was a time of special cultural importance, also in artistic terms, with the founding of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Carlos in 1784, of which Alcíbar was one of the founding members and in which he took an active part until his death. Despite the relative success of his teachings, the Academy saw the arrival in Mexico of painters trained and active in Madrid, such as Ginés Andrés de Aguirre, Cosme de Acuña, José Arias and Antonio González Velázquez, who undoubtedly enriched the horizons of the Latin American painters. The two portraits in the Museo del Prado are characteristic of one facet of Alcíbar's production, portraiture, and show the elegance and flamboyance of his brushwork.   Reference bibliography: - Magali Carrera, “Imagining Identity in New Spain: Race, Lineage, and the Colonial Body in Portraiture and Casta Paintings” (2003). - Ilona Katzew, “Casta Painting: Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century México” (2004). - Museo de Arte de Filadelfia, Colección de Pinturas de Castas. - Museo del Prado. (n.d.). 'Alcíbar, José de'. https://www.museodelprado.es/aprende/enciclopedia/voz/alcibar-jose-de/858ad8f0-de5b-4a63-921a-49d2d989e660