Lot Essay
Pingret, a pupil of Jacques-Louis David, travelled to Mexico in 1850 and spent five years painting Mexican society, high and low, his most treasured work now his paintings of the national types and costumes and scenery of Mexico City and environs at mid-century. His studies of the types and costumes include kitchen interiors and such street scenes as the present picture, where he closely observes local types and costume. Here our focus of attention, as for the women fetching water, is the horseman (charro) and his mount, the charreria costume, the horse with its branded haunch, and saddle with its silver embroidery finely detailed by Pingret.