The First Interview Between the Spaniards and the Peruvians

The First Interview Between the Spaniards and the Peruvians
Artist	Henry Perronet Briggs
Year	1827
Type	Oil on canvas, history painting
Dimensions	195.6 cm × 144.8 cm (77.0 in × 57.0 in)
Location	Tate Britain, London

The First Interview between the Spaniards and the Peruvians is an oil on canvas history painting by the British painter Henry Perronet Briggs, from 1827.

It depicts the meeting of the Spanish conquistadors and the Peruvian Incas in 1532. While the Incan Emperor Atahualpa greets the friar Vincente de Valverde and other Spaniards peacefully, on the right the conquistador Francisco Pizarro prepares to draw his pistol, triggering the Battle of Cajamarca and a massacre.^[1]

Briggs drew inspiration from the History of America (1777) by William Robertson. Two near-identical versions of the work were created. One was displayed at the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition of 1826 and the other at the British Institution in 1827.^[2] Today the latter painting is in the collection of the Tate Britain, having been acquired by the nation in 1847, through a gift from the art collector Robert Vernon.^[3]

• Pizarro Seizing the Inca of Peru, an 1846 painting of the subject by John Everett Millais

• Earle, Rebecca. The Return of the Native: Indians and Myth-Making in Spanish America, 1810–1930
• Hamlyn, Robin. Robert Vernon's Gift: British Art for the Nation 1847. Tate Gallery Publications, 1993.