In November 2023, the streets of Madrid witnessed an unprecedented natural and artistic phenomenon: the blooming of the guayacán in the middle of the European winter. Master Miguel Betancourt, invited to the prestigious Meninas Madrid Gallery project, intervened a sculpture of Infanta Margarita, transforming Diego Velázquez’s icon into an explosion of Ecuadorian color and symbolism.

Under the title “The guayacán blooms in Madrid”, Betancourt proposed a pictorial narrative where yellow is not just a pigment, but a symbol of strength, poetry, and connection with the earth.

The Infanta as Queen of Valdivia

Betancourt’s proposal was not a simple decoration, but a cultural transfiguration. The artist took as his central axis the blossoming of guayacanes—a natural spectacle of the Guayas and Loja provinces—to dress the Infanta Margarita.

• Ancestral Symbolism: On the Menina’s face, Betancourt merges the Austrian infanta with the Venus of Valdivia, crowning her with “golden flowers” that evoke both botanical richness and ancient Inca quipus (accounting knot systems), which here hang from the skirt as golden fringes.
• The Phytomorphic and the Sacred: The tree’s branches intertwine with the skirt’s hoop, while the Sun and Moon anoint the figure’s shoulders. For the master, this yellow radiance seeks “to fortify the human soul” through warmth and trust.

A Dialogue Across the Atlantic

This participation in Madrid is the continuation of a study that Betancourt began in 2018 with his exhibition “Nymphs, Meninas, and the Painter’s Gaze”. On that occasion, the artist had already established a bridge between Velázquez, Picasso, and the Andean landscape.

By bringing his brushstrokes from the Cumbayá Valley and Ecuadorian fauna to 94 Serrano Street, Betancourt enabled Velázquez to “stroll” through the Andes and allowed Madrid pedestrians to experience the magic of a mythical tree that blooms only once a year.

“I have taken as iconic elements the blossoming of our guayacanes… to encircle the head of our Venus of Valdivia, as if she were a queen.” — Miguel Betancourt