?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 50,000 - $ 75,000
(MEXICO.) Cortés, Hernán. Letter addressed to his assistant, ordering that he offer hospitality to a visiting bishop. Letter Signed "Yo el Marques" to his property manager Diego de Guinea of Oaxaca. One page, 6 x 8 1/2 inches, addressed and docketed on verso; mount remnant on left edge, folds, minor edge wear. [Mexico], 21 December 1538
A rare letter by Hernán Cortés (1485-1547), the famed conquistador who led the Spanish conquest of Mexico from 1519 to 1521, and then served as the first Governor of New Spain. This letter was written by Cortés during his long second period in Mexico, between his 1536 return from Baja California and his final passage back to Spain in 1540. He had been named Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca, and had vast land holdings in Oaxaca. In this letter, Cortés informs his longtime majordomo Diego de Guinea of an impending visit by a bishop, most likely Juan Lopez de Zárate, who had been appointed in 1535 as the first Bishop of Oaxaca. Cortés has promised the bishop the full use of one of his houses in town ("Obispo va a esa ciudad y yo se tengo ofrescida esta casa") and orders that the bishop be fully attended to. Cortés letters are quite scarce on the market; we are aware of none others sold at auction since 1984.
