Italian artist Eugenio Landesio came to Mexico in 1855 and spent two decades teaching at the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos (Fine Arts Academy of San Carlos) in Mexico City. There, he established a tradition of formal landscape painting and taught one of Mexico’s most beloved landscape painters, José María Velasco. In 1873 he began the commission that would become Hacienda de Monte Blanco, and upon his return to Rome, Landesio entrusted Velasco with its completion. A view of Monte Blanco, a hacienda in the state of Veracruz, Hacienda de Monte Blanco precisely depicts biological, geological, and regional characteristics that Landesio felt to be central to the practice of landscape painting. From the natural vegetation of the region to the rocky climb of the eponymous Monte Blanco hill in the distance, every aspect of the painting speaks to its specific locality, a hallmark of Landesio’s style.