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Francisco Cabrera (Guatemala City, September 18, 1780 — ibid., 1845) was a prominent Guatemalan miniaturist and portrait painter of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, considered the most influential miniaturist in Latin America. He represents the peak of miniature portraiture in Guatemala, and it is estimated that he created several hundred on ivory.

Biographical sketch


He entered as an apprentice engraver at the Mint in 1795, under the direction of Pedro Garci-Aguirre, who in 1796 proposed him as master corrector of the Mint and the Economic Society of Friends of the Country, an entity that brought together members of the powerful Aycinena Clan of Guatemala. In late 1808, he participated alongside Casildo España and Manuel Portillo in the notable printed work Guatemala, commissioned by King Ferdinand VII of Spain.

He continued working under Garci-Aguirre's orders at the Mint until his death in 1809.

After the Central American Independence, he returned as second engraver at the Mint in 1823, where he now had greater responsibility, as the designs for the circulating currency had to be made in Central America.

Nicknamed "El Fino" (The Fine One), he lived poorly, as neither his art nor his occupation as an engraver were adequately compensated; his home was in the Historic Center of Guatemala City, on a street known as "Callejón del Fino" in reference to him.

Upon his death, he was buried in the old cemetery of Guatemala City, but his remains were lost when it was moved to the new Cemetery of Guatemala City in 1882.

Work
As a portraitist, in addition to Garci-Aguirre, he was influenced by Juan José Rosales, a Guatemalan engraver and painter who preserved part of the Baroque tradition, but with Romantic elements, mixed with a popular tone.

From mid-2006 to the first quarter of 2008, Cabrera's work, and that of his disciples who maintained the art of miniatures until the second half of the 19th century, was classified and cataloged. The vast majority of Cabrera's works are in private collections, and only two examples belong to Guatemalan museums: the portrait of José Francisco de Córdoba y González in the National Museum of History of Guatemala and that of the priest Francisco Alcántara in the National Museum of Modern Art «Carlos Mérida», which is the only large-scale oil painting attributed to Cabrera.

Female portraits
Cabrera's female portraits present the ladies with their torsos slightly turned to the left while turning their powerful gaze towards the observer, through large, gray olive irises. The hairstyle of the time when conservatives ruled in Guatemala — from 1821 to 1829 — was characterized by thick locks ending in black hair curls falling over the forehead, while the back hair was gathered into two braids directed upwards, finished with a diadem or comb on top of the head.

The elements that highlight the social status of the Aycinena clan ladies are the large gold and pearl earrings hanging from their earlobes, sky blue muslin dresses dotted with white thread embroidery in the shape of small flowers, with lace trim on the neck and short puffed sleeves, a short pearl necklace matching the earrings, and a two-loop gold chain around the neck with a central piece hanging in the shape of a pear or teardrop, standing out from the rest.

Ladies of the Aycinena Clan portrayed by Cabrera in the 1820s