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Lot Essay
Silver made the cities of Nueva España rich beyond dreams, and sites of extravagant display and exuberant consumption. Seventeenth century Mexico City was legendary for its markets, public festivals and lush promenades. Women dressed in expensive silks strolled through shady parks, and sat upon imported velvet cushions as their horse-drawn carriages took them around their city of splendor. Furnishings and accessories for the home such as the luminous enconchado likewise—required lavish spending.1 These exquisite objects, such as this enconchado, were commissioned by religious orders such as the Franciscans and Augustines, but these items were also highly desired by elite colonial families as status symbols of private devotion. It is worthwhile noting that included in the royal inventories of the Spanish monarch Charles II conducted after his death, The Conquest of Mexico, a series of twenty-four enconchados; another series of twelve enconchados, depicting the Life of the Virgin; and still another portraying the Virgin of Guadalupe, were amongst his possessions.2
Enconchados, paintings encrusted with mother-of-pearl, abalone or other shell, are unique in the artistic production of religious and secular artifacts in Nueva España. These flourished from approximately 1650 to 1750 with certain known masters or workshops devoted to this specialized and highly prized craft. Tomás González and his sons, Miguel and Juan, exclusively produced enconchado paintings and frames, but numerous enconchados by anonymous masters also proliferated. The laborious technique developed in Mexico due to the extensive trade with its colonial outpost in the Philippines. The Manila Galleon’s yearly trip with its precious cargo of sumptuous wares from Asia such as diverse lacquerware, delicate ivories, lustrous porcelains, brilliantly-colored silks, lavish embroideries, and other luxury items, was a commercial enterprise that made Manila and Acapulco rich and placed them as the centers of global trade. The vast exchange not only made possible the arrival of unusual and opulent goods, but also the craftsmen to execute them.
The present enconchado depicts San Diego de Alcalá, a saintly lay brother of the Franciscan order who was born in Seville in 1400 and died in 1463 in the city of Alcalá de Henares, birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes and site of one of Europe’s oldest universities. The composition is richly endowed with various lustrous shells which detail the saint’s vestments, the large cross he holds, fragments of the finely illustrated friary in the background and the gnarled tree with birds. The attention paid to the painted areas is equally meticulous, particularly the garden which is carpeted with dainty roses, the fountain at its center and the floral ground on which the holy man stands barefoot. Known for his piety and love for mankind, San Diego often took bread from the monastery’s table to give to the poor and hid in the folds of his habit. Once, he was asked to show what he was hiding and upon opening his cloak, roses tumbled to the ground—the rose, alluding to both the Holy Virgin and paradise. In this composition he holds a basket full of bread instead.
Rendered with great care, the frame is also encrusted with precious mother-of-pearl and abalone and adorned with grapevines and birds alluding to the Eucharist or Christ and the abundance of God’s nature represented by the charming birds. In a private or public space, the frame helped to highlight even further, the dazzling composition of the saintly figure, thus inspiring devotion to and meditation on the holiness of San Diego. By order of Charles III, the Franciscans began to establish missions along California’s coast in the eighteenth century. The first of twenty-one missions was built in honor of the compassionate San Diego in 1769.
Margarita Aguilar, Doctoral Candidate, The Graduate Center, New York
1 D. Leibsohn, “Made in China, Made in Mexico,” At the Crossroads: The Arts of Spanish American & Early Global Trade, 1492–1850. Papers from the 2010 Mayer Center Symposium at the Denver Art Museum. Donna Pierce and Ronal Otsuka, eds. Denver: Denver Art Museum and Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 2012, 11.
2 S. I. Ocaña Ruiz, “Marcos ‘enconchados’,” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, no. 92, 2008, 131. The enconchados in the Spanish monarch’s inventories are now housed in the Museo de América in Madrid.
Enconchados, paintings encrusted with mother-of-pearl, abalone or other shell, are unique in the artistic production of religious and secular artifacts in Nueva España. These flourished from approximately 1650 to 1750 with certain known masters or workshops devoted to this specialized and highly prized craft. Tomás González and his sons, Miguel and Juan, exclusively produced enconchado paintings and frames, but numerous enconchados by anonymous masters also proliferated. The laborious technique developed in Mexico due to the extensive trade with its colonial outpost in the Philippines. The Manila Galleon’s yearly trip with its precious cargo of sumptuous wares from Asia such as diverse lacquerware, delicate ivories, lustrous porcelains, brilliantly-colored silks, lavish embroideries, and other luxury items, was a commercial enterprise that made Manila and Acapulco rich and placed them as the centers of global trade. The vast exchange not only made possible the arrival of unusual and opulent goods, but also the craftsmen to execute them.
The present enconchado depicts San Diego de Alcalá, a saintly lay brother of the Franciscan order who was born in Seville in 1400 and died in 1463 in the city of Alcalá de Henares, birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes and site of one of Europe’s oldest universities. The composition is richly endowed with various lustrous shells which detail the saint’s vestments, the large cross he holds, fragments of the finely illustrated friary in the background and the gnarled tree with birds. The attention paid to the painted areas is equally meticulous, particularly the garden which is carpeted with dainty roses, the fountain at its center and the floral ground on which the holy man stands barefoot. Known for his piety and love for mankind, San Diego often took bread from the monastery’s table to give to the poor and hid in the folds of his habit. Once, he was asked to show what he was hiding and upon opening his cloak, roses tumbled to the ground—the rose, alluding to both the Holy Virgin and paradise. In this composition he holds a basket full of bread instead.
Rendered with great care, the frame is also encrusted with precious mother-of-pearl and abalone and adorned with grapevines and birds alluding to the Eucharist or Christ and the abundance of God’s nature represented by the charming birds. In a private or public space, the frame helped to highlight even further, the dazzling composition of the saintly figure, thus inspiring devotion to and meditation on the holiness of San Diego. By order of Charles III, the Franciscans began to establish missions along California’s coast in the eighteenth century. The first of twenty-one missions was built in honor of the compassionate San Diego in 1769.
Margarita Aguilar, Doctoral Candidate, The Graduate Center, New York
1 D. Leibsohn, “Made in China, Made in Mexico,” At the Crossroads: The Arts of Spanish American & Early Global Trade, 1492–1850. Papers from the 2010 Mayer Center Symposium at the Denver Art Museum. Donna Pierce and Ronal Otsuka, eds. Denver: Denver Art Museum and Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 2012, 11.
2 S. I. Ocaña Ruiz, “Marcos ‘enconchados’,” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, no. 92, 2008, 131. The enconchados in the Spanish monarch’s inventories are now housed in the Museo de América in Madrid.