José de Páez
Saint John of Nepomuk (San Juan Nepomuceno)1770

On view:

Geffen Galleries

Oil painting of a bearded man in gray robes pointing at a skull, beside a small child holding a crucifix, with a Latin inscription below

Oil painting, dark background with a crucifix bearing a Latin titulus reading 'INRI,' a robed figure partially visible at left, and a young child looking upward at the cross in the lower right.

Oil painting detail showing a pale hand with lace-cuffed sleeve resting against dark gray drapery, holding a small key or pendant on a cord, with smooth blended brushwork.

Oil painting detail showing a human skull atop stacked books with a ribbon decoration, framed by a curved cartouche bearing a Latin inscription in dark earth tones with smooth brushwork.

Artist or Maker: José de Páez
Mexico, 1721-circa 1790
Title: Saint John of Nepomuk (San Juan Nepomuceno)
Date Made: 1770
Medium: Oil on copper
Dimensions: Unframed: 17 5/8 × 13 1/8 in. (44.8 × 33.3 cm); framed: 23 1/16 × 18 9/16 × 1 3/4 in. (58.58 × 47.15 × 4.45 cm)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund
Accession Number: M.2016.110.1
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes: This painting shows Saint John of Nepomuk, a priest from Prague who was martyred in 1393. The king of Bohemia brutally tortured John for refusing to reveal the secrets of the queen’s confession, and ordered him drowned in the Moldova River. When his body was exhumed in 1719, his reddish tongue had allegedly remained intact, still pulsating with life. In this oil-on-copper painting, created for private worship, the red tongue hangs from the saint’s priestly robes. The Jesuits promoted the saint as a symbol of resilience and discretion during turbulent times in the order’s history at the dawn of their expulsion in 1767.

Saint John of Nepomuk became one of the most revered cult figures in Mexico in the eighteenth century. In 1731, the Jesuits named him their tutelary saint. In this work by José de Páez, a prolific painter active in Mexico City, he is depicted within an oval frame (typically reserved for portraits of prominent individuals), gazing upward with one hand on his chest and the other pointing at the Latin inscription: “On account of the seal of confession.” Five glowing stars crown his head in reference to those that appeared in the sky on the night he was cast into the river.

Ilona Katzew

2024
Provenance: José Joaquín de Arguinzoniz (b. 1778, Durango, Spain; in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, 1803–c. 1815; returned to Durango, c. 1815); or his grandson Joaquín Arguinzoniz y Díez Gutiérrez (1845–1911), San Luis Potosí (property shipped to Durango, c. 1914); by inheritance to Antonio Manuel Arguinzoniz Garay Artabe (b. 1852, Durango) and María del Carmen Arguinzoniz y Olalde (1886–1971, Bilbao, Spain); by inheritance to her daughter María Begoña Díaz de Mendívil Arguinzoniz (1923–2015, b. Vitoria, Spain, d. Madrid); Caylus Anticuario SA, Madrid, 2015; LACMA, 2016.
Selected Bibliography: Katzew, Ilona, ed. Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici. Exh. Cat. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Mexico City: Fomento Cultural Banamex; New York: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2017.
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.
Selected Exhibition History: Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici . Sunday, November 19, 2017 - Sunday, March 18, 2018
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. June 22, 2024 - September 08, 2024

Related Exhibitions

José de Páez
Saint John of Nepomuk (San Juan Nepomuceno)1770

On view:

Geffen Galleries

Artist or Maker: José de Páez
Mexico, 1721-circa 1790
Title: Saint John of Nepomuk (San Juan Nepomuceno)
Date Made: 1770
Medium: Oil on copper
Dimensions: Unframed: 17 5/8 × 13 1/8 in. (44.8 × 33.3 cm); framed: 23 1/16 × 18 9/16 × 1 3/4 in. (58.58 × 47.15 × 4.45 cm)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund
Accession Number: M.2016.110.1
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes: This painting shows Saint John of Nepomuk, a priest from Prague who was martyred in 1393. The king of Bohemia brutally tortured John for refusing to reveal the secrets of the queen’s confession, and ordered him drowned in the Moldova River. When his body was exhumed in 1719, his reddish tongue had allegedly remained intact, still pulsating with life. In this oil-on-copper painting, created for private worship, the red tongue hangs from the saint’s priestly robes. The Jesuits promoted the saint as a symbol of resilience and discretion during turbulent times in the order’s history at the dawn of their expulsion in 1767.

Saint John of Nepomuk became one of the most revered cult figures in Mexico in the eighteenth century. In 1731, the Jesuits named him their tutelary saint. In this work by José de Páez, a prolific painter active in Mexico City, he is depicted within an oval frame (typically reserved for portraits of prominent individuals), gazing upward with one hand on his chest and the other pointing at the Latin inscription: “On account of the seal of confession.” Five glowing stars crown his head in reference to those that appeared in the sky on the night he was cast into the river.

Ilona Katzew

2024
Provenance: José Joaquín de Arguinzoniz (b. 1778, Durango, Spain; in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, 1803–c. 1815; returned to Durango, c. 1815); or his grandson Joaquín Arguinzoniz y Díez Gutiérrez (1845–1911), San Luis Potosí (property shipped to Durango, c. 1914); by inheritance to Antonio Manuel Arguinzoniz Garay Artabe (b. 1852, Durango) and María del Carmen Arguinzoniz y Olalde (1886–1971, Bilbao, Spain); by inheritance to her daughter María Begoña Díaz de Mendívil Arguinzoniz (1923–2015, b. Vitoria, Spain, d. Madrid); Caylus Anticuario SA, Madrid, 2015; LACMA, 2016.
Selected Bibliography: Katzew, Ilona, ed. Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici. Exh. Cat. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Mexico City: Fomento Cultural Banamex; New York: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2017.
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.
Selected Exhibition History: Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici . Sunday, November 19, 2017 - Sunday, March 18, 2018
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. June 22, 2024 - September 08, 2024