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Collections

Unidentified artist
The Defense of the Eucharist and Charles II (La defensa de la Eucaristía y Carlos II)circa 1675-1700

On view:
Geffen Galleries, Picturing the Divine in Spanish America
Oil painting, two groups of armored figures in elaborate brocade garments flanking a tall column topped with a gold sunburst monstrance, with a radiant light above and a disembodied head in the lower left corner
Oil painting depicting a jewel-encrusted gold monstrance at center, radiating light, with a white dove above. Two armored figures flank it holding ribbons. Warm peach and gray tones with detailed decorative rendering.
Oil painting detail, close-up of a mustachioed man in a large red and white turban with a jeweled brooch and tassel, wearing a blue robe with gold embroidery, holding a curved sword; two additional figures visible behind him against a stormy sky.
Oil painting detail showing an orb painted with blue sky and clouds, topped with a gold imperial crown with red velvet and a cross finial, crossed by a gold scepter. Figures in armor and richly embroidered garments flank the regalia.
Artist or Maker
Unidentified artist
Title
The Defense of the Eucharist and Charles II (La defensa de la Eucaristía y Carlos II)
Place Made
Peru, Cuzco school
Date Made
circa 1675-1700
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
Unframed: 62 × 48 7/16 in. (157.5 × 123 cm); framed: 69 × 55 1/4 × 2 1/2 in. (175.26 × 140.34 × 6.35 cm)
Credit Line
Purchased with funds provided by the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund
Accession Number
M.2021.42
Classification
Paintings
Collecting Area
Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes

This political allegory depicts King Charles II of Spain (r. 1665–1700) on the left as the defender of the Catholic faith, accompanied by two archangels. The recumbent lion at his feet, a staple of Spanish court portraiture, connotes power and strength—even if here it is singularly anthropomorphized and lacking in vigor. To the right, figures representing Islam and Protestantism try to topple a monstrance, the container for displaying the Holy Sacrament and an emblem of the Habsburg monarchy. All symbols of power—king and foe, scepter and monstrance—are emphasized through the strategic application of gold (a technique known as brocateado that was fashionable in Cuzco).

The subject draws on Spanish political thought and a host of images that glorified the Eucharist and the Spanish monarchs as defenders of the faith, but this configuration was a Cuzco invention associated with the Spanish-born bishop Manuel de Mollinedo y Angulo (r. 1673–99). A staunch royalist, Mollinedo sought to reform local parishes and embellish the churches across his diocese in Peru by commissioning more than eighty gilded monstrances similar to the one depicted here (see M.2021.103a-b).

Ilona Katzew

2024

Provenance
Private collection, Madrid, c. 1960–2019; Ansorena, Madrid, November 5, 2019, lot 303; Carteia Fine Arts, Madrid, 2019; LACMA, 2021.
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. October 20, 2023 - January 28, 2024
  • 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 22, 2024 - September 08, 2024

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