The Meeting of Cortés and Montezuma

What it is

This large oil painting, by unknown artists, is part of a series on the Conquest of Mexico made in Mexico during the second half of the seventeenth century. It shows the famous meeting between the Aztec ruler Moctezuma and the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés. It is held today in the Jay I. Kislak Collection, part of a rare books and special collections division.

Why it matters

Painted more than a century after the event, this work reflects how colonial-era artists in Mexico imagined and retold the meeting of Moctezuma and Cortés. It reveals less about what actually happened and more about how European and colonial society remembered the conquest, and how Moctezuma was pictured as a powerful but ultimately overcome ruler.

Look closer

• What details show that the painter wanted Moctezuma to look powerful?
• Why might the artist place the Spanish horsemen on the right, approaching?
• What can't this painting tell us, since it was made so long after the event?