San Martín lithograph in El Mosquito

What it is

This is a lithograph portrait of San Martín printed on a masthead page of the satirical paper El Mosquito, dated 1892. It shows an older man with white hair, a thick mustache, and a dark high-collared coat with a cravat, from the shoulders up. The caption reads José de San Martín. The printer is listed only as a newspaper lithograph.

Why it matters

San Martín died in 1850, so this image was made more than forty years later. Its appearance in a satirical paper shows that he remained a public figure whose image was reused and reinterpreted in Argentina long after the independence wars.

Look closer

• What details of clothing and appearance does the artist choose to show, and what do they suggest about how San Martín was remembered?
• Why might a satirical paper in 1892 publish a portrait of a figure who had died decades earlier?
• Who might this portrait leave out, and whose memory of the independence wars is not shown?