Josef de Jaudenes y Nebot

Gilbert Stuart

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Born in Valencia, Spain, Josef de Jáudenes (1764–1818) arrived in New York City in 1785, serving first as an assistant to the Spanish minister and later as the Spanish chargé d’affaires. Following his marriage to New York-born Matilda Stoughton (07.76) in 1794, Jáudenes commissioned Stuart to paint a pair of portraits commemorating their union. Stuart, who had returned from Ireland the previous year, drew on his knowledge of European Grand Manner portraiture in his elaborate depictions of the two sitters. Jáudenes, formally posed and richly attired, exemplifies the power and prosperity of the Spanish Empire, then at the height of its territorial expanse in the Americas.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art