JUAN MANUEL BLANES | Los Dos Ponchos

Sale: Sotheby's, New York, November 23, 1998, lot 14, illustrated

This work is in original unlined condition. The surface is visibly dirty, and there are areas and pinpoint dots of discoloration in the sky, most noticeably around the horizon line at center right. There is finely patterned craquelure across the picture surface with scattered associated pinpoint losses and minor lifting. Under UV: varnish fluoresces green unevenly. Scattered, small brushy areas of retouching are visible, concentrated in the sky and around the contours of the right figure's forearm and elbow.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Juan Manuel Blanes is one of the preeminent Latin American artists of the nineteenth century. Born in Montevideo, Uruguay, he trained in Florence for two years and went on to produce a varied oeuvre, ranging from large-scale history paintings to smaller rural scenes. Los Dos Ponchos appears to be a preparatory canvas for a painting of the same title in the Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales in Montevideo (n.d., 20⅞ by 24½ in.) This work is part of a series of paintings Blanes did of gauchos, the nomadic peoples who roamed the cattle regions of Uruguay in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The figures wear typical costumes, complete with sombrero, poncho, and spurs, and the landscape in the background is distinctly Uruguayan (Alicia Haber, "Los Gauchitos: The Image of the Gaucho as National Icon," The Art of Juan Manuel Blanes, Buenos Aires, 1994, p. 81-3). For Blanes, the gauchos represented Uruguayan identity in a rapidly modernizing world, as they were “central to the historical imagination of Uruguay, an urban, Europeanized nation with few reminder of its colonial and indigenous past” (Haber, p. 113).