Miguel Cabrera

1695–1768

A portrait of the Virgin of Guadalupe

Miguel Mateo Maldonado y Cabrera was a renowned painter during the Colonial period in Mexico. Cabrera painted both religious and secular art, and was the author of some of the most recognized casta paintings which illustrate and classify mestizaje (racial mixing) in Mexico’s colonial society. Cabrera, himself an artist of indigenous and Spanish ancestry, was one of the most important painters during his time and most influential in the propagation of the icon and faith in the Virgin of Guadalupe.