Virgin of Guadalupe?
date: label: Date made
content: 1700 - 1820
name: label: user
content: Rio Grande Pueblo Mission Church
label: depicted
content: Our Lady of Guadalupe
notes: label: Description
content: Collected at Rio Grande, N.M., probably near Santa Fe. Sewn leather pieces worked into a relief head, and cord like arms, and hands. The figure is painted in a dark blue at top as well as red with three white (negative) stirpes. A halo or aura in yellow surrounds the figure.
label: Description
content: This figure appears to be a Virgin Mary figure.
label: Description
content: Missionary priests who proselytized among Indians in what is now New Mexico frequently instructed local craftsman to render images of figures important to Catholic teachings. The mission where this painting was created was miles from the Gulf of Mexico, where imported canvases would have been prohibitively expensive and in short supply. Missionary priests worked out a compromise with their Indian laborers, increasingly relying on their skill in rendering animal skins into a workable substitute for scarce European canvases.
label: Description
content: According to Mrs. E. Boyd, former curator of the Museum of New Mexico, who examined this piece for possible transfer to the National Museum of History and Technology (now American History): "By the time the Franciscan missionaries were being withdrawn from New Mexico and replaced by Mexican secular clergy, the visiting bishops from Durango, Mexico, the seat of the diocese, repeatedly ordered the removal of sacred images painted on animal skins as not suitable." Following passage of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which transferred New Mexico to the United States, canvas was more readily available and buffalo herds were dwindling. By the close of 19th century, the buffalo was becoming the unofficial emblem of the United States, as prominent as the eagle in American symbolic imagery.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New Mexico, Rio Grande
label: associated place
content: United States: New Mexico, Rio Grande
topic: label: depicted
content: Virgin
label: Subject
content: Catholic Church
label: Subject
content: Christianity
label: Subject
content: Missions
label: related event
content: Guadalupan Apparition
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Religion
label: See more items in
content: Religion
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Dr. J. Walter Fewkes
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: CL.176403
label: accession number
content: 31785
label: catalog number
content: 176403
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Painting, Hide
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: tanned and painted (overall production method/technique)
label: Physical Description
content: paints, vegetal (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: skin, hide, buffalo (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 69 cm x 50.5 cm x 1.8 cm; 27 3/16 in x 19 7/8 in x 11/16 in