Portrait Of Bolivar. Circa 1822-1827. Peru.

This painting on metal depicts the Liberator Simón Bolívar with a mustache, in a three-quarter bust portrait, wearing military uniform. The work can be attributed to the circle of the Peruvian painter José Gil de Castro, active in Lima during the War of Independence. A very similar portrait is in the Virginia Library in Richmond, Virginia. According to the library's records, it was brought to the United States from Peru in 1827 by Captain William K. Smith of the U.S. Navy and donated to the library in 1875 by B. H. Smith, the captain's brother. The close formal and compositional similarities between the painting we are presenting and the one in Richmond suggest that both were produced by the same painter or in the same workshop, probably in Lima between 1822 and 1827, in response to the enormous demand for the cult of the Liberator in several South American cities, before most of them disappeared from public spaces during the anti-Bolivarian reaction of 1827. Another portrait of Bolívar, similar to the one we are presenting, is in the Museo Nacional de Colombia and has been attributed to the Ecuadorian painter Antonio Salas, who is believed to have executed it in 1822. Gil de Castro also produced a series of these bust portraits commissioned by the Peruvian state in 1825.
The painting is in excellent condition, with minor surface imperfections along the edges.