A Virgem dos Navegantes

This is, as far as anyone knows, the earliest painting to take the discovery of the Americas as its subject. Alejo Fernández made it in the 1530s for the chapel of the Casa de Contratación in Seville, the crown office that controlled all trade and traffic with the new colonies — every ship, every cargo, every licence passed through it. The Virgin spreads her cloak over a crowd of kneeling figures said to include Christopher Columbus and the explorer Amerigo Vespucci, with the great ships of the Atlantic crossing riding in the water below. Behind the Europeans stand indigenous people of the Americas, folded into a scene that presents conquest as protection under Mary. It still hangs in the Alcázar of Seville, where it was painted.