Processional Cross

1700-1800

Name(s) currently unknown

Guatemala, GTM, Museo Popol Vuh, Universidad Francisco Marroquín (current location)

Processional crosses like this one from Guatemala were designed to be borne aloft on wooden poles. The depiction of the Crucifixion on this example would be recognizable to viewers at a distance, even though details and complexity of iconography would not. This cross has masculine iconography on one side, dominated by the crucified Christ and Saints Peter and Paul, who founded the church. Visible here is the other side, which emphasizes female imagery. At center is the Virgin Mary, shown as a young mother, and in the cartouches at the end of the arms of the cross and the base, three women appear, likely the three Marys present at the Crucifixion.

The central images are the Virgin Mary with her infant son on this side of the cross, and the crucified Christ on the reverse. Cartouches bearing the images of six of the Apostles ring the base. A longhaired praying figure appears on the roundel on the stem of the cross, perhaps representing Mary Magdalene, who often appears at the foot of the cross. To the right of her, a tiny zigzag mark is visible. An assayer, scraping the silver to test its purity, made it. The bottom of the cross is a hollow tube, meant to hold the supporting pole.

Marks at the center of the piece would identify the maker and the place of manufacture. Today it is not known who commissioned this work.

The cross is made of silver, carefully worked in a variety of techniques. The figure of the crucified Christ (on reverse) was likely cast of solid silver. Most of the decorations visible on this side of the cross were hammered into a sheet of metal, a technique called embossing. The cross is not hollow silver but rather has an interior wooden center with two embossed silver sides nailed into, and covering the wood. The delicate scalloped decorations on the sides were probably cut or stamped out of sheet silver and then soldered onto the piece.

The cross is currently in the Museo Popol Vuh of the Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala City.

Through carefully developed and repeated imagery, the Catholic Church made its central doctrines clear, and in doing so, forged connections between the otherworld and the lives of humans. Human suffering was pictured on innumerable crucifixes, in oil paintings and in murals, as in the wall painting of flagellants in this section. Through processional crosses like these, worship was brought to the streets and the divine was invited to circulate through the lived spaces and geographies of Spanish American towns and cities.

Reproduced courtesy of the Museo Popol Vuh, Universidad Francisco Marroquín, Guatemala

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

Alonso de Rodríguez, Josefina. 1981. El arte de la platería en la Capitanía General de Guatemala. 2 vols. Guatemala: Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala.

The Grandeur of Viceregal Mexico: Treasures from the Museo Franz Mayer/ La grandeza del México virreinal: tesoros del Museo Franz Mayer. 2002. Houston. Texas and Mexico City: The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and Museo Franz Mayer.