ABSTRACT
In 1609, after over a century of tensions and failed assimilationist policies, the government of King Philip III of Spain ordered the expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain. The Moriscos were the descendants of Muslims compelled to convert to Christianity at the start of the sixteenth century. The expulsion of hundreds of thousands of people who were, officially at least, Christians by Europe’s foremost Catholic monarch was highly controversial. In 1627, the Italian painter Vicente Carducho (1576/78–1638) produced a sketch for a painting commemorating the expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain. The sketch was created as a result of a competition between court painters to produce a painting that would celebrate the expulsion as an action undertaken by the King of Spain (Philip III) to defend the Catholic faith against crypto-Islamic heresy. The winner of the competition was the noted court painter Diego de Velázquez, whose painting was eventually lost in the fire that destroyed the royal palace in Madrid in 1734. Carducho’s sketch, however, has survived and is fascinating. 1 Beyond the details, the observer’s empathy seems drawn entirely to the Morisco adults and children, movingly depicted in rags and in distress as they march towards a ship destined to convey them to North Africa under the watchful eye of Spanish soldiers. Perhaps it is not surprising that Carducho did not win the competition with a proposal for a painting that hardly seems celebratory.
