Juan Bautista Maino: The Recovery of Bahía de Todos los Santos (1634-1635)

(Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain)

A painting by the Spanish artist Juan Bautista Maino (1569-1649). This piece originally came from the Salón de Reinos ("Hall of the Kingdoms" or "Hall of Realms"), a wing in the Buen Retiro Palace in Madrid. The painting shows the recapture of the Brazilian port of Salvador da Bahia from the Dutch by Fadrique Álvarez de Toledo y Mendoza in May 1625 and its return to the Portuguese Empire. Salvador da Bahia was captured in 1624 by the Dutch as a part of the Dutch-Portuguese War (1601–1663) but the Spanish-Portuguese forces (Portugal was a part of Spain in this period) were able to recapture the city only a year later. The painting shows the suffering of war and Fadrique de Toledo pointing to an allegorical portrait of king Philip IV of Spain: he is trampling War, Wrath and Heresy and being crowned with laurels by Victoria and the Prime Minister Count-Duke Gaspar de Guzmán of Olivares (Olivares was also the commissioner of this painting). Painting from 1634-1635.