Public Procession Of The King Women Essay

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One similarity between the painting “Clothing and Status in Colonial Mexico” and “Public Procession of the King’s Women” is the way women are portrayed to be “lesser” than their male counterparts. In the “Public Procession of the King’s Women”, women of African descent are put on display for male slave merchants and officials to view. Because the viewers are European while the women are African, one might expect the display could be because of racial differences. While this may also be true, seated on the ground to the left of the table shows two darker skinned men also viewing the procession. This portrays the women in the engraving to be nothing more than objects to be displayed the presence of males, portraying them to be lesser in status. In the “Clothing and Status in Colonial Mexico”, the man wears the more European-style outfit with the porcelain on his side of the painting, while the woman wears a traditional garb while she carries …show more content…

The family in “Clothing and Status in Colonial Mexico” portrays a family with a child, labeled as a “wolf”, an African/Indian descendant and an Indian descendant. During that time frame, these races were usually those categorized on the lower end of the social hierarchy. In the procession painting, however, both of what was considered to be the higher and lower races are present. This is one difference in how status is portrayed because in the portrait of the family, there is no direct, side-by-side, comparison to Europeans. On the contrast, the European merchants and officials, placed at tables lavish with food and seated under umbrellas, are put in direct comparison with the African women displaying themselves for the upper-class guests of the