Don Manuel Romero de Terreros y Villar-Villamil

In his full-length equestrian portrait, Don Manuel commemorated one of his greatest achievements, the completion of the aqueduct of Tepotzotlán (more commonly known as the Arcos de Sitio) outside Mexico City. Born into one of Mexico’s leading Creole families, he had renounced several ancestral titles and associated properties by the time he assumed the role of governor of the Federal District (Mexico City). In his short term, he promoted the establishment of charities, improved local hospitals, and reformed the jails.

When Napoleon III installed Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian as puppet emperor of Mexico in 1864, Don Manuel, a staunch Mexican patriot and liberal idealist, immigrated to France. He lived there through Maximilian’s fall in 1867 (his portrait and that of his daughter, illustrated below, were probably commissioned at that time), supporting Mexican liberals expelled by the short-lived European regime. After the defeat of the empire, he returned to Mexico, where he remained for the rest of his life.

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