Eduardo de Jesús Douglas is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of North Carolina. He is the author of ‘In the Palace of Nezahualcoyotl’ (University of Texas Press, 2010).

Self-Portrait, (detail), (1719), Juan Rodriguez Juárez, Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico City,

How to look at Mexican Old Masters

The painters of New Spain have been misunderstood for centuries, but their work seems to be entering the mainstream at last