Old+Mesilla+Plaza

Date: ca. 1885-1886
 * [[image:https://s3.amazonaws.com/saam.media/files/styles/x_large/s3/images/1951/1951.13_1a.jpg?itok=77hgVe2K width="413" height="255" link="@https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/old-mesilla-plaza-25003"]] || Title: **Old Mesilla Plaza**

Artist: **Leon Trousset** Born: France 1838 Died: Juarez, Mexico 1917

Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 29 9/16 x 48 1/2 in. (75.1 x 123.2 cm.) Smithsonian American Art Museum Transfer from the Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution

Accession: 1951.13 || Leon Trousset's painting of Mesilla, near Las Cruces, New Mexico, takes us far into the past. Spain's King Philip II mandated the appearance of his colonial cities, where priests, tradesmen, and the king's army competed for influence. Priests often intervened between the soldiers and native peoples, and the church at left reflects their spiritual authority. Across the plaza lies a low-roofed building that likely housed the military commanders. A dirt road leading into the distance marks the town’s position on El Camino Real, the King's Highway connecting trade centers from Santa Fe to Mexico and beyond. Trousset painted this village after the territory had been ceded to the United States, but he included Mexico’s tricolored flags flying in the garrison courtyard. Mesilla’s plaza carried the history of two cultures—Spain and Mexico—even as a third power claimed the unassuming adobe settlement as its own.
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"In Las Cruces, visitors head for Old Mesilla, a historic village south of the city founded by Hispanic residents. Shops sell Native American and Mexican crafts around a historic plaza and the Basilica of San Albino, where the bells are still rung by hand. La Posta restaurant occupies the building that once served as a way station for the Butterfield Overland Mail and Wells Fargo stagecoaches. The village began on the other side of the Rio Grande from Las Cruces. But the river changed course in 1885, putting Mesilla back on American soil."
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