José Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza

The Montegut Family
José Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza, c. 1794–1800
Oil on canvas, 59 x 74 ½ inches
Loan of Gustave Pitot, Louisiana State Museum 04944-04945

The Montegut Family is singular in its ambition and scope among early Louisiana paintings, comparable with the best painting executed at the time in the U.S., in Philadelphia or New York, such as John Smibert's The Bermuda Group (1728–1739; Yale University Art Museum) or Charles Willson Peale's Benjamin and Eleanor Ridgely Laming (1788; National Gallery of Art). Not until the mid-nineteenth century did Louisiana artists such as John Antrobus and Johann Wilhelm Rümpler again conceive such complex, symbolic portrait groups.

Dr. Joseph Montegut typified the political adaptability of members of the Colonial elite. Born in Armagnac, France, he came to New Orleans in 1769 and served as Surgeon Major of the Spanish Colonial Army. In 1794, he became Chief Surgeon of Charity Hospital. Although of advanced age, Montegut commanded marines aboard the American sloop Carolina during the Battle of New Orleans. Montegut was prominent in Masonic circles, indicated by the golden triangle that he displays in the proper right hand.

Seated on the right is Dr. Joseph Montegut and his wife, François DeLise Dupart (1774–1836), with their daughter Aimee (b. 1794). Other children of the union are, moving left, Felicié Solidelle (b. 1783), later wife of Louis Philippe de Roffignac, Mayor of New Orleans from 1820–1828; Maria Manon (b. 1778) later married Jean Batiste de Neurisse; François Ramon Joseph (b. 1780), later State Treasurer under Governor William C. C. Claiborne; and Catherine Innocencia (b. 1790/1791). Mrs. Montegut's aunt, François DeLise, was painted posthumously, suggestive of a different hand—possibly Salazar's daughter, Francisca.

The composition suggests that the musicale grouping of children and portrait of the Dr. and Mrs. Montegut were conceived separately and spliced together. The division runs along the shaded area of the central column, supported by evidence of a seam.

Ignacio de Balderes
Attributed to José Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza, c. 1790
Oil on canvas, 45 1/2 x 33 1/2 inches
Gift of Mr. Harvey Truxillo, Louisiana State Museum M141.2

Born in Salamanca, Spain, in 1757, Balderes entered military service as a private at the age of thirteen. He was sent to West Florida to work as a surveyor and rose through the ranks. As a sergeant in 1779, he earned distinction by capturing a post at Pass Manchac during the Battle of Galvez-Town. Balderes was knighted by the king of Spain and given a large land grant near Pensacola.

In the early 1790s, Balderes was a Sub-Lieutenant of the Grenadiers, Second Battalion of the Regiment of Louisiana, and commander at Balize, an outpost guarding the mouth of the Mississippi River. The single epaulette—which is in the Museum's collection—indicates his rank as a lieutenant. Balderes was respected for his zeal and leadership. Francisco Bouligny, his commander, wrote "I believe it is always fitting to provide officers of well-known courage, good conduct, assiduity and who are intelligent" with promotion when he became adjutant-major of the Third Battalion in 1793. Balderes eventually reached the rank of captain in 1798 and died in 1815 at the age of fifty-eight.

Senora de Balderes and Her Daughter
Attributed to José Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza, c. 1790
Oil on canvas, 45 x 33 inches
Gift of Mr. Harvey Truxillo, Louisiana State Museum M141.1

Senora de Balderes holds a single red rose, a Baroque-era symbol of procreation and maternal attentiveness. In both style and format, Salazar's style resembles portraits commissioned throughout the Spanish colonies in the late eighteenth century, especially the work of Puerto Rican artist José Campeche y Jordán (1751–1809) and Mexican artist Joseph Mariano Lara (fl. 1760–1790).

Census records indicate that the Balderes family lived on Royal Street in 1791. At the time, New Orleans had about 5,000 residents.

Bishop Luis Ignatius Cardenas y Peñalver
José Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza, c. 1801
Oil on canvas, 85 x 52 inches
Gift of Notre Dame University, Louisiana State Museum 1955.008.1

Peñalver was ordained as a priest in 1771, and briefly served as a bishop in his native Havana before being elected the first bishop of the Diocese of Louisiana in 1793. Peñalver administered the church during a period of great expansion but left for what he described as "another less burdensome" diocese in Guatemala in 1801.

Photograph of Bishop Cardenas y Penalver
Francisca Salazar (c. 1780–1802), 1802
Oil on canvas, 82 ½ x 50 ¾ inches
Former Loan of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, EL03.1970.1

Destroyed in the Cabildo Fire of 1989, this was the only identified painting by Francisca. According to records at the Old Ursuline Convent, the Church paid her 100 pesos for this portrait on April 15, 1803, after the bishop had left Louisiana. These photographs, taken about 1950, document the painting in the Cabildo.

Augustin Guillaume Chevalier de Macarty
Attributed to José Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza,
c. 1785
Oil on canvas, 23 3/4 x 17 1/2 inches
Louisiana State Museum 08268A.01

Assigning authorship to Salazar is complicated by large areas of disfiguring over-paint applied by heavy-handed restorers over many decades.

Madame Chevalier de Macarty (née Jeanne Marie Chavin)
Attributed to José Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza, c. 1785
Oil on canvas, 24 x 17 3/4 inches
Louisiana State Museum 08268A.02

Jeanne Marie Chauvin de Lery, daughter of Jacques Chauvin and Jeanne Dauville, was baptized on October 5, 1744. She married Ignace Broutin (1737–1764), but he died in France soon after the marriage. Her union with Augustin Guillaume Macarty (1745–1793), begun on January 11, 1773, bore two sons: Augustin Francois (1774–1844) and Juan (b. 1776). Augustin served as mayor of New Orleans from 1815–1820. She may have died during childbirth.

The painting appears to have been based on a miniature. Madame Macarty wears a blue dress with white ruffled trim on the collar and sleeves—a color combination often worn by women in Colonial and early National periods. Pearls trim the dress as well. She has white and black feathers in her hair and crystal earrings. The painting has been over-restored.

Lieutenant Michel Dragon
Attributed to F. Godefroid (fl. 1807–1820), or School of Jose Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza, c. 1810
Oil on canvas, 39 1/2 x 31 5/16 inches
Gift of John T. Block, Louisiana State Museum 05748-05749

Michel Dragon (1739–1821) was a native of Athens, Greece. He immigrated to New Orleans about 1760 as a soldier in the French Colonial Army. In 1764, as Spain assumed control of the Louisiana Territory, Dragon received a commission in the Spanish militia. After having distinguished himself at Pensacola with Bernardo de Galvez, Dragon attained the rank of second lieutenant and received a Royal Appointment in 1792.

Marianne Celeste Dragon (or Dracos)
Attributed to Jose Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza, c. 1795
Oil on canvas, 37 1/4 x 30 1/4 in. (94.6 x 76.8 cm)
Gift of John T. Block, Louisiana State Museum 05750

Marianne Dragon (1777–1856) was the daughter of Michael Dragon and Marianne Françoise Chauvin de Beaulieu de Montplaisir (1755–1822), a Creole. She married André Dimitry of New Orleans in 1799 and bore him ten children. Her portrait is more complex and interesting than that of her father.

Marianne is shown seated in a Windsor chair near a Louis XVI desk. Her aqua-colored dress with laced bodice and cuffs, pearl necklace and double strand of pearls in her hair, and gold hoop earrings bespeak wealth, privilege, and eligibility for marriage. The flowers are symbolic of her role as a young woman capable of bearing children. Marianne's vaguely foreign costume suggests her exotic heritage, as well as her growing interest in escapism and pastoral fantasies, reflected in literature and poetry of the era.

Captain Don Pedro George Rousseau
School of Jose Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza, c. 1785–1798
Oil on canvas, 35 x 25 in. (88.9 x 63.5 cm)
Loan of the Louisiana Historical Society, Louisiana State Museum 00435

Rousseau was born in France and served in the Continental Navy during the Revolutionary War. He also was with Governor Gálvez against the British during the Siege of Pensacola and "the conquest of Movila" (Mobile). Rousseau led the boarding party aboard USS Morris on September 10, 1779, that captured the English sloop West Florida on Lake Pontchartrain. From his flagship Galveston, he later served as "commandant of the galleys of the Mississippi."

In 1800, now a lieutenant-colonel, he petitioned King Juan Carlos for support as the French assumed control of Louisiana, noting his "deplorable situation...in his advanced age surrounded by ten children."