Juan José Cabezudo y un Amigo (1827) depicts a quiet moment on the streets of Lima, Peru. (1) Birds soar overhead in a pale blue sky as two men stroll along an empty street. Shutters are drawn, signaling the early morning hours – a time when such a quiet scene is possible. The two friends lean on each other in conversation, their brightly colored garments setting them apart from the otherwise muted environment with rich blues, pinks, yellows, and blacks. Their puffed sleeves, cinched trousers, and fitted vests are eye-catching. 

Who are they? One of the figures is Juan José Cabezudo (1800-1860), a well-known Afro-Peruvian cook in Lima’s Plaza Mayor, one of the first openly homosexual Peruvians in post-Columbian Peru, and notorious for crossdressing. (2) Why are they walking through this otherwise empty street? Is it because they feel comfortable expressing themselves in the open, or is it because the early morning offers them solitude, away from prying eyes?  

 In Juan José Cabezudo y un Amigo, artist Francisco Cortés confronts the lasting impacts of Spanish colonialism and Eurocentric representations of homosexuality by bringing the “other” into the foreground. In this case, “other” refers to queer and Indigenous bodies. Under Spanish sovereignty and widespread enforcement of Catholic morality, sexual acts that could not result in reproduction were considered immoral sins and serious judicial crimes – labeled as sodomy. (3) The criminalization of queer individuals, branded as “sodomites”, instilled fear of the “other” and reinforced colonial power structures. By representing Indigenous homosexual figures, the painting contrasts the white homosexual representations from Europe and asserts Cabezudo’s rightful place in Peruvian culture.

Endnotes

1. Francisco Cortes (attributed to), Juan Jose Cabezudo y un Amigo (Juan José Cabezudo and a Friend), 1827, watercolor and tempera on paper, in The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity 1869- 1939 – Before the Binary, (New York, NY: The Monacelli Press, 2025), 27.
2. Juan Carlos Hidalgo Mantilla, “Relaciones de dénero y masculinidades en la venta callejera de Lima en el siglo XIX (1845 – 1865),” Historia & Región, no. 10 (December 2022), 24. 
3. Fernanda Molina, “Sodomy, Gender, and Identity in Viceroyalty of Peru,” in Sexuality and the Unnatural in Colonial Latin America (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016), 142.

Alice Jacob is an educator at Wrightwood 659 and arts worker in Chicago. Holding a Bachelor’s Degree in Art History from Oberlin College, she is interested in art conservation, museum accessibility practices, and building community spaces in and out of the arts.