Altar Screen Finial
date: label: Date made
content: 1775-1799
label: associated dates
content: 1966 10 27 / 1966 10 27
label: associated dates
content: 1881 01 06 / 1881 01 06, 1965 00 00 / 1965 00 00
name: label: originator
content: Our Lady of Guadalupe Church
label: user
content: Our Lady of Guadalupe Church
notes: label: Description
content: This European Baroque-style polychromed ornamental fragment with floral, scroll and tassle motifs carved out of locally grown cedar was originally part of the altar of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Zuni (part of present-day New Mexico). It was part of the renovated decoration installed in the mission church c. 1778-1779, and one of several fragments collected for the U.S. National Museum's Bureau of Ethnology by James Stevenson and Frank Hamilton Cushing without permission from the community they were studying. On November 21, 1879, in a report addressed to J. C. Pilling, Chief Clerk of the Bureau, Stevenson reported: "I secured from the Old Church of Zuni two large images 4 ft. highand the center piece of the altarGot them in the dead of night." In the annual report of the Bureau published in 1896, Cushing reported: "A few years since, a party of Americans who accompanied me to Zuni desecrated the beautiful antique shrine of the church, carrying away 'Our Lady of Guadalupe of the Sacred Heart,' the guardian angels, and some of the bas-reliefs attached to the frame of the altar. When this was discovered by the Indians, consternation seized the whole tribe; council after council was held, at which I was alternately berated (because people who had come there with me had thus 'plundered their fathers' house'), and entreated to plead with 'Washintons' to have these 'precious saints and sacred masks of their fathers' returned to them."
topic: label: Subject
content: Christianity
label: Subject
content: Catholic Church
label: Subject
content: Missions
label: Subject
content: Saints
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Religion
label: See more items in
content: Cultures & Communities
label: See more items in
content: Religion
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: CL.041914
label: accession number
content: 9899
label: catalog number
content: 41914
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Finial, Altar Screen
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: wood, cedar (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: gesso (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: paint, tempera (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: roman catholicism (overall single or multi-hued)
label: Physical Description
content: spanish colonial (overall style)
label: Physical Description
content: carved and polychromed (overall production method/technique)
label: Measurements
content: average spatial: 17 in x 7 in x 3 in; 43.18 cm x 17.78 cm x 7.62 cm