The set offered by La Suite Subastas (26.62% buyer’s premium including VAT) on November 25 is a late 18th century work of the Viceregal School, the Western style of painting that developed in Peru after the Spanish conquest.
The series features all the rulers of the Inca empire before the Spanish rule beginning with the founder of Cuzco Manco Cápac (1200-30) and ending with Atahualpa, who was executed in 1533.
The rulers are dressed in the uncu, an exquisitely woven tunic, and on their heads they wear the mascaipacha (a symbol of power as governor of Cuzco and Tahuantinsuyo) and a version of the llautu, the traditional royal headdress. They are also shown carrying a topayauiri or sceptre that has a distinctive axe head shape to one side.
Pizarro, who conquered Peru and established the city of Lima in 1535, is shown in European armour.
Other sets depicting this lineage of Inca rulers as well as individual portraits exist including a set of 16 paintings in the Denver Museum which also includes a portrait of Mama Occollo, the principal wife of Manco Cápac.
The La Suite Subastas group of 15 oil paintings on relined canvas each measuring 2ft 9in x 2ft 1in (84 x 63cm), had a provenance to private collections in Florence and Portugal and sold for €480,000 (£410,255) against an estimate of €450,000-650,000.
