- Title
- Chalice (Cáliz)
- Date Made
- 1575-1578
- Period
- Colonial
- Medium
- Silver gilt, rock crystal, wood, and feathers
- Dimensions
- Height: 13 in. (33 cm); diameter: 9 in. (22.9 cm)
- Accession Number
- 48.24.20
- Collecting Area
- Decorative Arts and Design
- Curatorial Notes
Combining precious metals, feathers, boxwood carvings, and rock crystal, the “Hearst Chalice” stands out as one of the most complex works of sixteenth-century Mexican silversmithing. Used in ancient times and invested with sacred meaning, these materials were redeployed to create Christian objects, demonstrating an important level of agency for Native artists as they staked their place in the new body politic. Although mostly deteriorated, the feathers would have glistened with ambient light and motion, helping channel the spirit of the divine.
From exhibition Archive of the World, 2022 (for more information see the catalogue entry by Ilona Katzew and Rachel Kaplan in the accompanying publication, cat. no. 15, pp. 100–06)
- Provenance
Lionel “Spanish” Harris, Chesterfield Gardens, London, c. 1912–1920s; William Randolph Hearst, c. 1920s; Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art (LACMA’s parent institution), 1948.
- Selected 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.
- Katzew, Ilona, and Rachel Kaplan. “‘Like the Flame of Fire’: A New Look at the ‘Hearst’ Chalice.” Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture 3, no. 1 (2021): 4–29.
- Selected Exhibition History
- Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World. November 6, 2011 - January 29, 2012
- Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World. November 6, 2011 - January 29, 2012
- Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 12, 2022 - October 30, 2022
- Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 12, 2022 - October 30, 2022
- Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. October 20, 2023 - January 28, 2024
- Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. October 20, 2023 - January 28, 2024
- Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 22, 2024 - September 08, 2024
- Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 22, 2024 - September 08, 2024
