Holy Family (nun's badge)
- Luis Juárez, Mexican, ca. 1585 - 1639
- Work Locations: Mexico
Unknown artist, Holy Family (Nun’s Badge), early 1600s. Oil paint on copper with a tortoise shell frame; 4⅝ in. dia. Gift of the Collection of Frederick and Jan Mayer, 2013.363.
Nun’s badges (escudos) are unique to Mexico. Invented there in the 1600s, they were worn at the throat by Conceptionist and Hieronymite nuns over the habits of their respective orders. Depicting the Virgin and saints significant to the order and/or the individual nun, they were usually painted on round or oval sheets of copper and framed in tortoiseshell or wood. Many of the most famous artists in Mexico painted nun’s badges, and some are signed. Although unsigned, this piece is attributed to the workshop or a follower of the important early 17th-century artist Luis Juárez, founder of a dynasty of artists in Mexico.
This small image shows the crowned Virgin Mary in a purple robe and blue mantle. Standing in her lap is the Christ child, with a gossamer cloth around his hips and a lily in his hand. At right is St. Joseph, the earthly father of Christ, who holds the flowering staff that is his traditional attribute.
– Donna Pierce, 2015; revised by Kathryn Santner, Frederick and Jan Mayer Fellow of Spanish Colonial Art, 2023
- "Heaven and Earth: The Jan and Frederick Mayer Collection of Spanish Colonial Art from the Denver Art Museum, Jun 16-Oct 8, 2006, Museo de las Americas, Denver
- "From Viceregal to Verancular: Painting in Colonial Mexico and New Mexico," Nov 17, 2006-Apr 29, 2007, Museum of Spanish Colonial Art, Santa Fe