Collections Database

Description:
segment of wall fresco showing battle between Mexicans and Spanish soldiers, soldier in armor on ground in foreground being killed by figure in tiger skin, legs of other figures visible behind them; allegory; military/war; man; costume/uniform

Label Text:
Like Market Scene, this is a “portable” fresco panel created by Diego Rivera, quoting his fresco cycle for the Palacio de Cortés in Cuernavaca, Mexico. This scene is from the opening section of the cycle depicting the battle for Cuernavaca between the Aztecs and the invading army of Hernan Cortés. It shows a masked Indian warrior plunging a stone knife into a Spanish soldier. The warrior is a Jaguar Knight, an elite fighter who wore the flayed skin of a jaguar. Rivera and other artists adopted Jaguar Knight imagery as a symbol of cultural continuity during the period following the Mexican Revolution (1910–20).

Rivera collected Pre-Columbian art and was familiar with Aztec imagery of the Jaguar Knight through secondary sources such as Spanish colonial books and histories. The detail depicted in the panel is quoted from the lower left of the battle section of the fresco (see illustration).

Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+1934.8.1

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