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Collections

Unidentified artist
Measuring Cups (Vasos para medir)circa 1750-1800

On view:
Geffen Galleries, South American Symbolic Universes
Set of eight graduated gilt-metal cups with repoussé foliate decoration, arranged in a row, with one large lidded silver vessel at right
Cylindrical wooden vessel with deeply carved scrolling foliage, floral rosettes, and interlacing vine motifs covering the entire exterior surface, with plain banded rim and base.
Artist or Maker
Unidentified artist
Title
Measuring Cups (Vasos para medir)
Place Made
Bolivia, possibly Moxos or Chiquitos
Date Made
circa 1750-1800
Medium
Carved tropical wood
Dimensions
Large to small (height × diameter): (1) 7 1/2 × 5 1/2 in. (19.1 × 14 cm); (2) 4 1/4 × 4 1/8 in. (10.8 × 10.5 cm); (3) 4 × 3 11/16 in. (10.2 × 9.4 cm); (4) 3 5/16 × 3 1/4 in. (8.4 × 8.3 cm); (5) 3 1/4 × 3 in. (8.3 × 7.6 cm); (6) 2 7/8 × 2 1/2 in. (7.3 × 6.4 cm); (7) 2 3/8 × 2 1/4 in. (6 × 5.7 cm); (8) 1 7/8 × 1 7/8 in. (4.8 × 4.8 cm); (9) 1 1/2 × 1 1/2 in. (3.8 × 3.8 cm)
Credit Line
Purchased with funds provided by the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund
Accession Number
M.2020.84.1-.9
Classification
Furnishings
Collecting Area
Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes

The Jesuits first arrived in Moxos and Chiquitos (in present-day Bolivia) in the late 1600s and, by the eighteenth century, had established a chain of largely self-sustaining missions. In these settlements (reducciones), Native artists produced a range of exquisitely carved objects, such as this set of measuring cups. Their creations drew simultaneously on local and foreign decorative motifs and employed a variety of tropical woods.


From exhibition Archive of the World, 2022 (for more information see the catalogue entry by Ilona Katzew in the accompanying publication, cat. no. 81, pp. 316–19)

Provenance
Susana Montiel de Colmenares, London, c. 1980s; Pedro Aguiar-Branco, Portugal and France, 2001; AR-PAB gallery (Álvaro Roquette and Pedro AguiarBranco), Paris; Eguiguren Arte de Hispanoamérica (Javier Eguiguren), 2019; 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