Fundación de Buenos Aires

What it is

This is a history painting by the Spanish artist José Moreno Carbonero, made in a second version in 1923. It imagines the moment of the founding of Buenos Aires, showing a man believed to represent Juan de Garay pointing toward a tall wooden post (the rollo), surrounded by armored Spanish soldiers, clergy, and a large banner bearing a coat of arms. Native people appear kneeling in the foreground.

Why it matters

Painted centuries after the event, this image shows how Argentina in the early 20th century wanted to picture its founding moment — heroic, orderly, and dominated by Spanish authority. The way native people are shown kneeling reveals how the painter and his audience viewed the conquest, rather than how it may have actually looked or felt to those present.

Look closer

• Why are the native people shown kneeling, and what does that suggest about whose story the painting tells?
• What is Garay doing in the painting, and why might the artist have chosen that pose?
• What does the painting leave out about the people who already lived there?