page_title: Legacy of José de San Martín
section_title: Portraits
hierarchical_section_title: Legacy of José de San Martín / Portraits
caption_attribution_description: Español: José de San Martín
context_page_description: José de San Martín is the national hero of Argentina, Chile and Peru, and along with Simón Bolívar, the most important Libertador of the Spanish American Wars of Independence. For this reason, he is homaged and depicted in several cultural works of those countries, and even internationally.
context_section_description: San Martín was born in Yapeyú, Corrientes, in a poor family, and moved to Spain a short time afterwards. For evident reasons, he did not pose for any portrait during his infancy. Neither he did during his military career in Spain, as he lived in the barracks and it was not common to make portraits of young military. He was usually reluctant to pose for portraits, because of modesty and his frugal military lifestyle. During his stay in Argentina there is a drawing on ivory in his mounted grenadier uniform, of unknown author.
  The first known case where San Martín posed for a portrait was the 1818 portrait by José Gil de Castro, made in Chile. It was painted after the battle of Chacabuco, as part of the celebrations for victory, and it was officially exhibited the following year, during the Chilean Declaration of Independence. Castro's portrait features a notable sharp aquiline nose, but that was part of his particular style, and his other works usually feature similar noses. It is unknown if he posed for other portraits in Peru: the one by the contemporary Mariano Carrillo was signed after San Martín's departure from the Americas, and the one by Drexel was made five years after it.
  When he moved to Brussels, after his retirement, Jean Henri Simon made a medal of him. He posed for a new portrait in an unknown date for the artist Francois Joseph Navez, which is currently kept at the National Historical Museum. In 1828 the general Miller, who was writing his memoirs, requested San Martín to pose again, in military uniform. The work was done by Jean-Baptiste Madou. Madou made both a portrait and a testing lithography, which are kept in the aforementioned museum. After it, San Martín swore that he would not pose for further portraits. However, a new technology was developed in France by then, the daguerreotype, predecessor of modern photography. San Martín's daughter took him with pretexts to the house of the daguerreotypist and, once there, convinced him to pose for it. He posed for two daguerreotypes.
  The first portraits of the crossing of the Andes featured San Martín mounting a white horse. This was done for visual purposes, to make San Martín prominent among the other soldiers, and the white color has visual impact. This led to the common misconception that San Martín may have crossed the Andes on a white horse, when he actually did so on a mule, which is better suited to move in the mountains.
caption: Portrait of San Martín by José Gil de Castro. It is the first known case when San Martín posed for a portrait.
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