Missal Stand

1670-1680

Name(s) currently unknown

Lima, PER, Museo Nacional de Arte (current location)

This silver stand was designed to hold a missal, used during the mass.

In a design field dominated by foliate motifs, crosses are the one of the few explicit symbols incorporated in this work. Since they can stand for faith, they are appropriate decoration for objects, like this stand, associated with scripture. The cross along the narrower base, seen at left, is flanked with images of the three nails used to nail Christ to the cross, and symbols of the Passion. The bird on the upper part of the side may be a phoenix, a mythological bird believed to be reborn from the dead, and thus identified with Christ.

This work is not stamped with an identifying mark by the artist, but its style leads scholars to believe it was made in Cuzco.

This elegant stand began as a simple wooden construction, which was then covered with sheets of decorated silver. These silver sheets were embossed, that is, worked with hammers and punch tools to create the design. The craftsman skillfully used different punches to create a variety of surface qualities on the silver sheet. Consequently, one can see, and feel, the different textures of his work. It measures 35 x 38 x 27 cm.

Missal stands were used to support the missal on the altar during mass. The church this was used in is not known, but it was likely one of the many churches in or around Cuzco. Today the missal stand is in Museum of Art in Lima.

Churches in Spanish America were filled with ostentatious and beautiful objects like this one. While worldly goods, they were seen as a form of reverence for the divine.

Reproduced courtesy of the Museo de Arte de Lima, donación Familia Prado. Photo: José Casals

Dana Leibsohn and Barbara E. Mundy.
Vistas: Visual Culture in Spanish America, 1520-1820. http://www.fordham.edu/vistas, 2015.

Esteras Martín, Cristina. 2004. “Missal Stand.” In The Colonial Andes: Tapestries and Silverwork, 1530-1830. E. Phipps, J. Hecht and C. Esteras Martín, eds. Pp. 292-293. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Museo de Arte de Lima: 100 obras maestras/Art Museum of Lima: 100 Masterpieces. 1992. Lima: Asociación Museo de Arte de Lima y Banco Latino.