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Secondary sourcePainting1848

The Storming of Teocalli by Cortez and his Troops

Emanuel Leutze · 1848

An 1848 romantic history painting by Emanuel Leutze showing Cortés and his Spanish troops fighting the Aztecs atop a temple pyramid.

Depicts Cortés leading the attack, showing how nineteenth-century America romanticized and mythologized him.

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Large historical painting of a battle on a stepped Aztec temple pyramid. Spanish conquistadors in armor and helmets fight Aztec warriors in feathered headdresses and loincloths. Bodies lie on the stone steps, smoke rises behind, and a tattered banner flies at upper left.
Emanuel Leutze, The Storming of Teocalli by Cortez and his Troops, 1848. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.

About this source

What it is

This is an oil-on-canvas painting made in 1848 by the German American artist Emanuel Leutze, based on William H. Prescott's 1843 book about the conquest of Mexico. It is held today at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut.

Why it matters

Leutze painted this scene during the US–Mexican War, a time when Americans were rethinking stories of conquest and empire. The painting is not a record made at the time of Cortés but a nineteenth-century imagining, showing how later generations reused his story to comment on their own politics. It reveals more about how Cortés was remembered than about what actually happened.

Look closer

  • What does the painting emphasize about the Spanish soldiers compared to the Aztec warriors?
  • Why might an artist in 1848 choose this particular historical scene to paint?
  • What does the painting leave out about the perspectives of the Aztec people shown?

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

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