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Collections

Unidentified artists
Chest (Baulito)late 17th or early 18th century

On view:
Geffen Galleries, The Iberian World: From Spain to Spanish America
Dome-lidded chest with allover geometric inlay in ivory, amber tortoiseshell, and dark wood forming interlocking eight-pointed stars and diamonds, with small metal feet and a brass lock plate
Dome-lidded wooden casket with intricate geometric marquetry inlay in dark wood, warm brown wood, and ivory or bone, featuring eight-pointed star patterns on the front panels and a border of alternating triangles, raised on small turned feet.
Artist or Maker
Unidentified artists
Title
Chest (Baulito)
Place Made
Mexico, possibly Puebla
Date Made
late 17th or early 18th century
Medium
Wood, metal, tortoiseshell, and bone
Dimensions
10 3/8 × 13 1/2 × 7 3/4 in. (26.4 × 34.3 × 19.7 cm)
Credit Line
Purchased with funds provided by the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund
Accession Number
M.2015.142.2
Classification
Furnishings
Collecting Area
Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes

Luxury boxes were highly prized throughout Spanish America. Traditionally, this type of intricate geometric decoration was viewed as a byproduct of the Mudéjar style that originated with Arab craftsmen living in Spain between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries, which subsequently traveled to Mexico with the Spanish colonists. Recent scholarship, however, has argued for a more complex origin of similar patterns grounded on a wide range of Western-European sources.

Ilona Katzew, 2015

Provenance
Private collection, Paris; Galerie Terrades, Paris, 2005; LACMA, 2015.
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.
  • Díaz Cayeros, Patricia. “Mobiliario novohispano con diseños geométricos: maderas, carey y hueso.” Res Mobils. Revista internacional de investigación en mobiliario y objetos decorativos 10, no 13 (2021): 31–53.

  • Ilona Katzew, “Special Things: Boxes in Spanish America,” Unframed, July 20, 2022, https://unframed.lacma.org/2022/07/20/special-things-boxes-spanish-america.

Selected Exhibition History
  • 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