After training in Spain, this artist, born in 1746, in Barcelona, traveled first to Peru then to Colonial Mexico, where he lived and worked for the remainder of his life. He met and worked with Jeronimo Antonio Gil, the director of the Academy at San Carlos.
Clapera became the first European to paint the distinctly Mexican genre casta scenes which I have discussed here in the past. Casta refers to interracial pairings represented in paintings of everyday life. Clapera demonstrated his European training by employing contrapposto which refers to depicting the figure with weight on one leg and twisting the body. The pose can create either a relaxed or a more dynamic feel to the figure as compared to a more stationary stance. The painting below exemplifies that technique as well as depicting a Chinese man and Spanish woman with their presumably "mulatto" child.
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