“The Uniformity of a Distinctive National Character”: Loops, Knots, and Bernardo de Gálvez’s Calligraphic Equestrian Portrait

Abstract

This essay treats an extraordinary equestrian portrait of the New Spanish viceroy Bernardo de Gálvez created from little more than a looping, calligraphic line. Unique among viceregal painting, it has eluded definitive scholarly interpretation. A previously unexplored, printed calligraphic model is proposed. At stake, however, is not just source hunting but a reappraisal of the picture’s intellectual context within a network of the period’s renowned academicians and their thinking about handwriting. Moreover, new technical findings allow a revised dating of the picture in exposing the sitter’s shifting identity. What emerges is a political reading of the portrait’s original function as an act of deference to the Spanish crown and sign of investment in the renewal of Iberian culture’s proper formation of imperial citizens—on both sides of the Atlantic. Ultimately, the essay thus points to the art-historical potential of wrestling with the history of writing, a domain often segregated from other visual arts but one that was critical for early modern artists and their audiences.