Andrés Sanchez Gallque: Three Mulatto Gentlemen of Esmeraldas (1599)

(Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain)

A painting by the Ecuadorian artist Andrés Sanchez Gallque. this portrait was commissioned by the oidor (judge) Juan del Barrio de Sepúlveda in 1599. It shows Francisco de la Arobe and his sons Pedro and Domingo during an official visit to Quito, Ecuador, in 1598. Francisco was the son of an escaped African slave and an indigenous Nicaraguan woman and acted as the leader of a previously independent Afro-Indian community in the province of Esmeraldas on the northern coast of Ecuador. After military and diplomatic efforts in 1597 Don Francisco and his community accepted Spanish authority and Christianity. This portrait was made when Francisco and his two sons visited Quito to shows their loyalty to the Spanish crown. Juan del Barrio de Sepúlveda ordered this painting made and send it together with a detailed report about the pacification of the Esmeraldas region to king Philip III of Spain. Painting from 1599.