Acquired at Galería Irabién in Miami for USD$55,000, David Alfaro Siqueiros's Cuauhtémoc underwent a process of smoking and incineration by blowtorch, which was extended to the frame, itself ostentatiously detailed in silver. This picture of the defeated Mexica hero included a certificate from Adriana Siqueiros and was listed in the records of patrimonial inventory kept by Rafael Cruz Arvea at the National Institute of Fine Arts, until it was later discredited by the Institute itself.

This heroic effigy of the Mexica leader actually originated in a workshop that specialized in fakes, and the ruse was detected as soon as the collector Lance Aaron, who owns an especially rich collection of modern Mexican art, discovered an inconsistency between the date of this painting, associated with a mural of the Castle of Chapultepec, and the materials that were used to produce it. He duly proceeded to file a lawsuit, but over the years would up baptizing his archive the name of the emblematic Lecumberri prison in Mexico City, a caustic allusion the land of no return that is the Mexican justice system.

Francisco Reyes Palma