San Francisco de Asís

This work is an example of an enconchado painting, a colonial Latin American innovation with its roots in Asian artistic traditions that derived its name from the Spanish word “concha” or shell. In these shell-inlay paintings, small fragments of shell and mother-of-pearl were inlaid onto the surface of a wooden or canvas support in a mosaic-like manner to enhance the painted figural composition. The luminous nature of the raw material added a level of preciousness to the work of art and the shell’s shimmering surface was activated when viewed by candlelight. The subject matter of many colonial enconchados, like this example, included religious subjects, among them private devotional images for use in a domestic setting. In colonial Mexico, the artists who mastered this technique included the brothers Miguel and Juan González who excelled in enconchado narratives of the lives of Christ and the Virgin Mary, as well as grand historical subjects such as the Conquest of Mexico. Fine examples of colonial enconchado paintings can be found in collections all over the world, among them the Museo de América, Madrid; the Hispanic Society of America, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Buenos Aires.
The colonial enconchado tradition can trace its sources of influence to Asia, most notably to Japan, Korea and India in the use of inlaid mother of pearl in works of art fabricated for both secular and religious use. Japanese namban lacquerwork of the late sixteenth century is characterized by its lavish decorations of inalid shell work. Namban pieces inlaid with mother-of-pearl made their way to New Spain, where they influenced local artists to develop the enconchado technique.
Trade with Asia via the Manila Galleons transformed Mexico City into a commercial center and Asian imports were in abundance. While the primary trade route of the Manila galleons was directed toward Acapulco, several voyages of the last quarter of the seventeenth century took place between Manila and the Peruvian port of Callao. Chinese silks, porcelain, lacquerware and other Asian commodities flooded the market to satisfy the insatiable appetites of wealthy Peruvian consumers made rich from the silver mines. The demand for American silver in China (it is believed that a third of the silver mined in the New World ended up there) fueled the desire of merchants in Lima to participate in the profitable Asia trade.
The northern Andes region (present-day Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador) also received their fair share of Asian goods. Objects reached these more remote areas from both Acapulco and Lima and influenced artistic production in the region, especially lacquerwork. Luxury household furnishings were exported to the New World and had a lasting impact on local art production. Cabinetmakers in Peru were renowned for their talents and their adaptations of European and Asian designs and techniques, especially their use of mother-of-pearl in the elaboration of furniture and writing cabinets. (1)
While most extant enconchado paintings are Mexican in origin, Peruvian artists also practiced this unique technique. This example from Peru depicts an image of St. Francis of Assisi–a popular subject of Catholic, and especially Franciscan devotion–holding a skull and a crucifix with a sculpted image of Christ. Visible on his hands and feet are the stigmata—the holy wounds of Christ—traditional iconography associated with the Catholic saint. The traditional robe of the Franciscan order has been adorned with large pieces of inlaid shell fragments. St. Francis stands on a dais. Behind him to his right stands the Archangel Gabriel holding the Christ Child. In the ground before them appear parrot and a monkey, two animals frequently depicted in landscapes of Cuzco school and Andean paintings. The scene behind St. Francis to his left has a sinister aspect to it, the fanged and horned creatures adding to the darkness beyond the archways. The intentional contrast of good and evil in this image enhances the devotional aspect of this painting, providing the devotee with a cue in their contemplation of St. Francis and to emulate the life of Christ as he did.
Sofía Sanabrais, Independent Scholar, Los Angeles