Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

circa 1840
Artist
José Rafael Aragón, American
Active Years: ca. 1795-1862
Locale
Santa Fe, NM Cordova, NM
Country
United States
Object
retablo
Medium
Paint and gesso on wood panel.
Accession Number
1969.155
Credit Line
Gift of Morton D. May

Rafael Aragon, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, about 1840. Paint and gesso on wood panel; 19½ × 16½ in. Gift of Morton D. May, 1969.155.

Dimensions
height: 19.5 in, 49.5300 cm; width: 16.5 in, 41.9100 cm
Department
Mayer Center, Latin American Art
Collection
Spanish Southwest
This object is currently on view

When Spanish settlers arrived in the southwestern United States at the end of the 1500s, they brought with them paintings and sculptures of Catholic saints for their churches and homes. Soon afterward a local tradition of making such images developed. Spanish devotional artists (santeros) learned from local Pueblo artists how to make paints from native plants and minerals. They combined these homemade paints with oil paints imported from Mexico to make images of religious figures known as bultos (sculptures) and retablos (paintings on wood panels). Both are still made in the area today.

This image represents the Virgin of Mt. Carmel (known as Carmen in Spanish). According to legend, the Virgin Mary once appeared to a group of Christian hermits on Mt. Carmel in the Holy Land and offered them a short shoulder cape called a scapular. Later, miniature scapulars that look like double-ended necklaces were worn by the faithful as a reminder of personal devotion. Often in images both the Virgin and Christ Child hold scapulars.

-- Donna Pierce, 2015

Known Provenance
Gifted 4 June 1969 by Morton D. May [1914-1983], Denver, CO and St. Louis, MO to the Denver Art Museum. Provenance research is on-going at the Denver Art Museum. Please e-mail provenance@denverartmuseum.org, if you have questions, or if you have additional information to share with us.