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UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Constructing the Pre-Columbian Past: Peruvian Paintings of the Inka Dynasty, 1572-1879 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/73c1s9wq Author Stephens, Janet Garver Publication Date 2013 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Constructing the Pre-Columbian Past: Peruvian Paintings of the Inka Dynasty, 1572-1879 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Art History by Janet Garver Stephens 2013 © Copyright by Janet G. Stephens 2013 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Constructing the Pre-Columbian Past: Peruvian Paintings of the Inka Dynasty, 1572-1879 by Janet Garver Stephens Doctor of Philosophy in Art History University of California, Los Angeles, 2013 Professor Cecelia F. Klein, Chair This dissertation examines a genre of art, paintings of the Pre-Columbian Inka dynasty, that were produced in Peru for three centuries, beginning with the earliest years of colonial rule and enduring into the first decades following Peru’s independence from Spain. The genre emerged from the chaos of conquest and is notable for the diversity of its patronage. The paintings were collected by indigenous descendants of the Pre- Columbian Inka rulers, the Spanish colonial government, creoles (American-born Spaniards), and even foreign travelers. Furthermore, paintings of the Inka could be found in a variety of contexts, both public settings and private spaces, including the homes of indigenous elites in Cusco, indigenous parish churches in Lima and elsewhere, Lima’s cabildo (city hall), in the residences of elite creoles, and even in the royal collection in ii Madrid, Spain. Because it focuses on understanding the significance paintings of the Inka accrued in those multiple contexts, the study gives insight into how representations of the Inka past were used to articulate political, cultural and social identities that were constantly in flux. Throughout this study, paintings of the Inka are read in conjunction with other sources in order to flesh out the discourses with which they intersected. These sources include: other artworks that are contemporary with the genre; historical documents, among them colonial accounts of Inka history written from the perspective of indigenous and European authors, archival documents including legal proceedings and wills, and traveler’s accounts of Peruvian society. My study advances how paintings of the Inka provided a historical basis that legitimized their patrons. Rather than seeking a unified theory of the genre and its significance, the dissertation highlights how the paintings’ meanings were dependent on the diversity of their contexts of reception. While, in general, the subject matter and style of the paintings changed little over time, the period of the paintings’ production was marked by dramatic historical and political shifts, ranging from the years in which Spain’s power was being consolidated to those in which Spain’s hold over its Peruvian territories was in decline. Because paintings of the Inka were a means through which the paintings’ patrons could locate themselves historically and culturally within Peruvian society, the implications of the paintings likewise transformed. Paintings of the Inka could convey their subjects as noble ancestors or defeated enemies. They could uphold the legitimacy of the Spanish conquest of the Inka or question the limits of Spain’s power. iii By focusing on how the paintings created meanings that, in some instances, intersected and overlapped, while in others were divergent and contradictory, the dissertation advances understanding into the shifting perceptions of the Pre-Columbian past, and the vital function of that past in constructing one’s place in the present. iv The dissertation of Janet Garver Stephens is approved. Stella Nair Charlene Villaseñor Black Cecelia F. Klein, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2013 v TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures x Acknowledgements xx Vita xxii Chapter 1: Paintings of the Inka Dynasty and the Construction of History and Identity in Colonial Peru 1 Paintings of the Inka Dynasty and Questions of Identity in Colonial Peru 3 Paintings of the Inka Dynasty as Document 7 Paintings of the Inka Dynasty and the Construction of History 9 Paintings of the Inka Dynasty and Culture of the Contact Zone 11 Paintings of the Inka Dynasty and the End of Colonial Rule 15 Methodology 18 Chapter Breakdown 21 Notes 26 Chapter 2: Paintings of the Inka Dynasty, the Cusco School and the Issue of Hybridity 35 What We Talk About When We Talk About Hybridity 36 Cusco School Painting and Hybridity 39 Paintings of the Inka Dynasty and Hybridity in the Sixteenth-Century Contact Zone 46 The Appearance of Toledo’s Paños 48 Depictions of the Inka in the Works of Guaman Poma and Murúa 53 vi Hybridity and Toledo’s Paños 56 Summary 61 Notes 63 Chapter 3: The Inka in Spain’s Imperial Imagination: the Case of Toledo’s Paños 72 Sixteenth-Century European Images of the Americas 73 Toledo’s Campaign against the Inka 77 The Rights of the Indigenes and the Morality of Spanish Conquest 78 Toledo’s Revision of Inka History 83 Toledo’s Agenda and the Paños 85 Genealogy, Portraiture and Toledo’s Campaign against the Inka 86 Visualizing Tyranny in Early Modern Portraiture 92 Summary 101 Notes 103 Chapter 4: Continuity of a Dynasty: Paintings of the Inka Dynasty and the Inka Nobility in Cusco 118 Natural Lords and Noble Status in Colonial Peru 119 Iconography of Nobility 125 The Inka Cabildo 128 Women and Colonial Inka Nobility 131 The Politics of Memory: Huascar, Atahuallpa and the Vilcabamba Inka among Cusco’s Indigenous Elites 138 The Performance of Privilege in Colonial Cusco 145 Paintings of the Inka Dynasty in the Public Space of Cusco: the Case of San Borja 151 vii Summary 152 Notes 154 Chapter 5: More than Family Ties: Paintings of the Inka Dynasty and Andean Elites beyond Cusco 173 Tupac Amaru against the Inka Nobles 174 The Inka and the Spanish Monarchs: Alonso de la Cueva’s Composition 176 Summary 187 Notes 189 Chapter 6: Paintings of the Inka Dynasty and Indigenous Identity: the Influence of Rebellion and Independence 196 The Impact of Tupac Amaru 197 Paintings of the Inka and Independence 201 The Construction of the Inka Past in Nineteenth-Century Cusco: the Vindication of the Vilcambamba Inka 205 Acamayo’s Molina de los Incas 207 Summary 209 Notes 211 Chapter 7: Paintings of the Inka and the Construction of Colonial Creole Identity 215 Paintings of the Inka and the Colonial Creole Construction of Local History 216 Cueva’s Engraving: a Jesuit Critique of Crown Policy? 217 Creole Dynastic History of Peru and the Discourse of Loyalty 220 The Inka Dynasty Performed 226 Lima’s Cabildo as Patron of Paintings of the Inka Dynasty 230 Creoles and Inka in Cusco 233 viii Summary 237 Notes 239 Chapter 8: Paintings of the Inka Dynasty in the Nineteenth-Century Creole Imaginary 249 Changing Contexts of Receptions: Enlightenment Art of Reading and the Scientific Role of the Image 250 Amedée Frézier’s First Look at the Inka 252 The la Condamine Expedition, Inka Ruins and the Querelle d’Amérique 255 Inka and Casta in Juan and Ulloa’s Illustrations 258 Humboldt and Humanity’s Spiritual Development 262 Paintings of the Inka, the Creole Imagination, and the Nineteenth-Century Contact Zone 265 Conquistadors and Republican Heroes 270 Paintings of the Inka Dynasty and the Cusco School 273 The Copy and the Original in Nineteenth-Century Paintings of the Inka 275 Inka, Indigenous, and the Problem of the Cusco School in the Republican Imagination 278 Summary 281 Notes 283 Conclusion 292 Figures 299 Appendix A 389 Appendix B 395 Appendix C 399 Bibliography 400 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1 Paintings of the Inka Dynasty (American Identities Installation). Brooklyn Museum. Photo by Author, 2011. 299 Figure 1.2 Map of Inka Empire in 1532. In The Colonial Andes: Tapestries and Silverwork, 1530-1830, edited by Elena Phipps, Johanna Hecht and Cristina Esteras Martín. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004, xiv. 300 Figure 1.3 Viracocha, Eighth Inca, probably mid-18th century. Oil on canvas, 23 3/8 x 21 9/16 in. Brooklyn Museum. Image in the public domain. 301 Figure 2.1 St. Joseph and the Christ Child, late 17th-18th c., oil on canvas, 43 x 32 ¼ in. Brooklyn Museum. Image in the public domain. 302 Figure 2.2 Bernardo Bitti, Madonna and Child, ca. 1603, oil on canvas, 86 ¼ x 48 in. Church of La Compañia, Arequipa. In Art of Colonial Latin America, by Gauvin Alexander Bailey. New York: Phaidon Press, 2005, 296. 303 Figure 2.3 Diego Quispe Tito, The Good Shepherd with the Sign of Leo, 1681, oil on canvas, 55 ½ x 72 ¾ in. Cathedral, Cuzco. In “La serie del zodíaco del Diego Quispe Tito,” El Zodíaco en el Peru: Los Bassano y Diego Quispe Tito. Lima: Banco de Crédito del Perú, 1987, 63. 304 Figure 2.4 Anonymous Cusco School Artist, Archangel with Gun: Fortitvd, early 18th c., oil on canvas, 63 ¼ x 39 ½ in. Museo de Arte, Lima. In Gloria in Excelsis: The Virgin and Angels in Viceregal Painting in Peru and Bolivia. New York: Center for Inter-American Relations, 1986, 64. 305 Figure 2.5 Inka Royal Uncu decorated with tocapu motif, ca. 1530, camelid wool, 36 x 30 ½ in. Dumbarton Oaks, Pre-Columbian Collection B-518, Washington, D.C. 306 Figure 2.6 Frontispiece for “Decada Quinta,” from Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, Historia de los hechos de los castellanos,1615, engraving, 8.9 x 6.2 in. Image in the public domain. 307 x Figure 2.7 Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, Manco Capac, from El Primer Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno, fol.