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Secondary sourcePainting1880

Prisión del emperador Moctezuma

Rafael del Castillo de la Cuesta · 1880

A 19th-century lithograph imagining the capture of Moctezuma by Spanish conquistadors, made centuries after the event.

Depicts the capture of Moctezuma by Spanish forces, a pivotal and tragic moment in his reign.

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Black-and-white lithograph titled 'Prision de Motezuma' showing Spanish armored soldiers with helmets and halberds on the left facing a group of Aztec-style figures in feathered headdresses on the right, including a central man in a feathered crown and cloak. A large draped canopy and stone columns frame the scene; a shield lies in the lower right. Printed credits read 'J. Serra lit.', 'Lit. Vidal, Olmo 29' and 'Riera, Editor Barcelona'.
Rafael del Castillo de la Cuesta, Prisión del emperador Moctezuma, 1880. Archivo de la Diputación Provincial de Cáceres, Spain.

About this source

What it is

This is a black-and-white lithograph from 1880 made by Rafael del Castillo de la Cuesta, titled 'Prisión de Motezuma'. It shows Spanish soldiers in armor facing Aztec figures in feathered headdresses, with a man in a feathered crown at the center. It is held by the Archivo de la Diputación Provincial de Cáceres in Spain.

Why it matters

Made long after the conquest of Mexico, this image shows how later European artists imagined the fall of Moctezuma and the Aztec empire. It reflects 19th-century ideas about the Spanish conquest rather than an eyewitness record, and tells us more about how Europeans retold this history than about the actual event.

Look closer

  • Who is shown as powerful in this image, and who is shown as weak or defeated?
  • Why might an artist in 1880 Spain want to depict this scene?
  • What details seem imagined rather than based on firsthand accounts?

This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Montezuma II on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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Open bound manuscript on a green cloth, showing two pages of handwritten text in columns with small painted illustrations of fish, a shell, a crab, and shrimp. Page headed 'Libro undecimo'.Book

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Florentine Codex

Bernardino de Sahagún with Nahua collaborators · 1569

Painting showing Hernán Cortés seizing Moctezuma, a later imagined depiction of the event.Painting

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Hernán Cortés takes Moctezuma prisoner

Louis Auguste Turgis · 1895

Woodcut title page of a 1522 Spanish printed letter. A seated, crowned figure holds a scepter in an arched room with checkered floor, flanked by a city scene and a landscape. Below is black-letter Spanish text beginning 'Carta de relación enviada a su S. majestad del emperador nuestro señor por el capitán general de la nueva España, llamado Fernando Cortés', with a handwritten signature at the bottom.Letter

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Second Letter to Charles V

Hernán Cortés · 1520 (printed 1522)

Black-and-white lithograph titled 'Muerte de Motezuma' showing two figures on a stone terrace of a stepped temple. One figure in a cloak reaches out toward a tall stone wall, while a smaller figure crouches beside him. Smoke rises behind, and a city with towers and palm trees lies in the distance. An arrow lies on the stones.Painting

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Recreation of Moctezuma's Death

Rafael del Castillo de la Cuesta · 1880

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