CUZCO - 18TH CENTURY

The scene portrays the Child, accompanied by his parents, under a shelter seated at a round table blessing the bread. The background is a landscape.

Among the fruits offered is the pomegranate, belonging to the medieval iconography of gifts, and its peel also represents the temple because it contains seeds, which are the Christian faithful.

The growing taste for gold in art is evident in most of these works, where it plays a role both ornamental and as a feature of worship.

In religious paintings, gold was a nod to the preferences of the colonial market, but also referenced its symbolic value in Ancient Peru.

Figures such as that of Mary, interpreted as an indigenous child with a spindle and yarn, in the Andean way, were popular compositions favored by patrons, who requested them of the painting masters for their respective devotional rites.

The Virgin is shown wearing a cape fastened with a brooch that has the crowned monogram of Mary. A band holds back all but a ringlet of her hair. The band, together with the rings, earrings and bracelets complementing her bright and colorful garments became classic aspects of her representation.

A significant example is also the effigy of Our Lord of the Earthquakes, which upholds a popular faith tradition in Cuzco imagery.

It is the Lord of Earthquakes, the patron saint of Cuzco since the 1650 earthquake, whose features, characteristic of a carved crucifix, were subsequently copied in painting throughout the viceroyalty until the nineteenth century.

Altarpieces, which played an important role in Christian devotional rites by enhancing images of worship, were also gilded.

We can observe rich gilding in this altar of Crucified Christ as well.