Although Tomás Codezo’s work did not have the significance of other visual artists on the island, he was one of the first exponents of painting, whose development slowly surpassed the stage of foundational searches, associated with the imitation of European models, primarily Spanish, that arrived on Cuban shores.

This painter, born in Havana, enjoyed an excellent academic background for his time, having not only studied at the School of San Alejandro but also received classes in Paris and Rome with artists Henri Regnault and Mariano Fortuny, respectively. This allowed him to expand his range of painting techniques and achieve significant formal perfection.

He stood out primarily as a landscape and portrait painter. Researcher Ursulina Cruz points out that he was also a “history painter,” which suggests that there are references to works of this nature created by the artist that have not survived to this day, although one of his best pieces, “Father Las Casas Receiving the Spanish Prisoners,” addresses this topic.

Among his best-known portraits is that of the Marchioness of Duquesno, who was precisely one of the people who collected the greatest number of Codezo pieces. Also included are the portraits of the daughters of the Count of the House of Montalvo, Doña María de Jesús and Doña María de la Concepción Montalvo y Pedroso, both from 1862. Guillermo de Zéndegui, Fulgencio Batista’s cultural factotum, had the Portrait of José Carbonell in his collection.

As a portraitist, he also used Mr. Fernández Saavedra as his model; this piece dates from 1868 and is preserved in the National Museum of Fine Arts. He also created a lithograph portrait of the poet José Jacinto Milanés, which was exhibited in 1940 at the then Ministry of Public Works, formerly the Convent of Santa Clara. Mythological motifs were also present in his work, with “The Sleeping Venus” standing out in this regard, according to some critics, his most accomplished work.