Altar Frontal Plaque with Angel (Placa de frontal de altar con ángel )

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Altar Frontal Plaque with Angel (Placa de frontal de altar con ángel )

Viceroyalty of Peru, possibly Puno or Cuzco, 17th century
Sculpture; plaques
Repoussé and chased silver
11 1/8 × 10 in. (28.3 × 25.4 cm)
Purchased with funds provided by the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund (M.2006.196)
Not currently on public view

Provenance

Carl Dreyer Spohr (1895–1975), Puno, Peru, after 1924; by inheritance to Augusto Dreyer Costa (b. 1949), Peru and Canada, c....
Carl Dreyer Spohr (1895–1975), Puno, Peru, after 1924; by inheritance to Augusto Dreyer Costa (b. 1949), Peru and Canada, c. 1975; Nobuko Kajitani, New York, late 1980s; David Bernstein Fine Arts, New York, 2005; LACMA, 2006.
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Label

Elaborately decorated silver plaques adorned church altars across the viceroyalty of Peru and were shipped around the world, including to Jerusalem.

...

Elaborately decorated silver plaques adorned church altars across the viceroyalty of Peru and were shipped around the world, including to Jerusalem. These fragments were originally nailed to a wooden armature as part of a larger ensemble. This plaque represents the head of an angel framed by three pairs of wings—likely a seraph.


From exhibition Archive of the World, 2022 (for more information see the catalogue entry by Rachel Kaplan in the accompanying publication, cat. no. 85, pp. 331–34)
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Bibliography

  • Katzew, Ilona, ed. Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800: Highlights from LACMA’s Collection. Exh. Cat. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: DelMonico Books/D.A.P., 2022.

Exhibition history

  • Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800 Los Angeles, CA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, June 12, 2022 - October 30, 2022
  • Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800 Nashville, TN, Frist Art Museum, October 20, 2023 - January 28, 2024