Visualizing Loyalty in the Colonial Periphery: Creole Patriotism and Indigenous Representation in the Biombo de Fernando VII

This paper examines the Biombo de Fernando VII, a rare folding screen (biombo) produced in Guatemala between 1808 and 1821, as a visual and political artifact of Creole identity during the final phase of Spanish colonial rule. Created during the Napoleonic Wars and the absence of King Fernando VII, the biombo reinterprets public imagery from the 1808 royal oath ceremony in Nueva Guatemala—documented in Guatemala por Fernando Setimo, published in 1810—into a private decorative object. Its iconography, drawn from allegorical prints and ephemeral monuments, blends classical mythology with localized personifications, reflecting the ideological strategies of colonial elites.

The biombo’s format and decoration reveal a rich hybridity shaped by transpacific and transatlantic exchanges. Inspired by Japanese byōbu screens and favored by New Spanish elites, it integrates European allegories, Indigenous symbolism, and local materials. Through iconographic and contextual analysis, the paper explores how the object visualizes a Creole imaginary that negotiates colonial authority while embedding regional identity. The representation of Guatemala as four female allegories—two Indigenous and two Spanish—demonstrates how visual culture contributed to proto-national narratives and collective memory in the years leading to independence.

By centering this under-studied artwork, the paper challenges the marginalization of regional artistic production and highlights its role in shaping political symbolism and cultural expression. It argues that peripheral cities like Guatemala were central to articulating identity and power through visual and material culture. The Biombo de Fernando VII stands as an example of the complex intersections of art, politics, and identity in late colonial Central America.