- Title
- Sewing or Jewelry Box (Costurero o joyero)
- Date Made
- last third of the 18th century
- Medium
- Wood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, tortoiseshell, and silver
- Dimensions
- 5 1/2 × 17 5/16 × 13 3/4 in. (14 × 44 × 35 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2019.264.1
- Collecting Area
- Latin American Art
- Curatorial Notes
Spanish American furnishings veneered in tortoiseshell and mother-of-pearl designs are known as enconchados. The term derives from the application of small sheets of mother-of-pearl (concha de perla) on wooden surfaces. Because of their materials and decorative schemes, the works have been slippery to categorize. Scholars have suggested that they were imported aboard the famous Manila Galleons that traveled annually to the port of Acapulco in Mexico, from where the objects were distributed throughout Spanish America. Some experts have argued that their profusion in Lima suggests local manufacture, possibly with the involvement of Asian artisans. Archival and material documentation, however, seems to suggest that the works originated in Guatemala City, where mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell were harvested locally and considered a prized commodity. Many works made of these materials were exported to Mexico and Peru. The designs draw on a range of European and Asian sources, which local artists creatively reinterpreted.
In Lima, intricately decorated sewing boxes such as this were displayed in the sitting room or parlor (salón de estrado), a domestic space for women. The parlor served as a gathering or private place for the ladies of the house, who reclined on pillows and tapestries instead of sitting on chairs.
From exhibition Archive of the World, 2022 (for more information see the catalogue entries by Ilona Katzew and Luis Eduardo Wuffarden in the accompanying publication, cats. nos. 67–71, pp. 275–87)
- Provenance
Alberto Idoyaga Molina, Buenos Aires, first half of the 20th century; by inheritance to his son Alfonso Idoyaga Molina, London, c. 1994; Jaime Eguiguren Art & Antiques, Buenos Aires, c. 2000; LACMA, 2019.
- 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.
- 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
