Spanish School, late 18th century

This serene scene depicts Havana as it looked in the late eighteenth century, when it was the third largest city in the Americas (after only Mexico City and Lima). The expansive harbor could accommodate a thousand ships and the city’s shipbuilding yard was the largest in the New World. Considered the “key to the Indies,” Havana was, as a result, the most fortified city in the Americas. (The city’s fortifications were so central to its identity that when King Philip II of Spain in 1592 granted Havana its own coat of arms, it featured three fortress towers surmounted by a golden key.) 

At left stands the Castle of the Three Wise Men (constructed between 1590 and 1640 and sometimes simply called the Morro, the Spanish word for promontory), at right is the Fort of San Salvador (completed in 1600). A protective boom chain traverses the bay as a safeguard against invading naval forces. Both of these monumental structures, as well as the city’s central towers, however, were destroyed during the British Siege of Havana, which lasted fifty-four days during the summer of 1762. The assault on the city, one of the most important engagements of the Seven Years’ War (known in Britain's mainland colonies as the French and Indian War), destroyed large swaths of the urbanscape. Following Cuba’s return to Spanish control in 1763 (in exchange for Florida), the city was rebuilt, which may have served as the impetus for its documentation in this painting.