Dressed to Kill, Dressed to Till
Oil on canvas, 40 x 30 inches; in later frame. Jose Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza (1750-1802) was the leading painter of Creole society in New Orleans for the last two decades of the 18th century. Salazar had first arrived in New Orleans in c. 1780, in search of more lucrative commissions and patronage than he had enjoyed while working in Mexico. Judging by the cut of clothing and hairstyle of the sitter, this Salazar portrait of a young, presently-unidentified Yankee sea captain or merchant was probably painted in New Orleans sometime between 1798-1802, the year of the artist’s death. The sitter, wearing a double-breasted coat in the current English fashion, probably hails from a prosperous North Shore seafaring family, as it was purchased by a Maine collector some 26 years ago at an estate auction in Newburyport, Massachusetts. The portrait is a 3/4-length, oval view, a convention observed in nearly all extant portraits known to have been painted by Salazar. Salazar’s works, especially of Anglo-American visitors to New Orleans, are extremely rare today and highly desirable.
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