Shell-shaped box

1770-1780

Name(s) currently unknown

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

This wooden box in the form of a shell was a familiar luxury item in the cities of Peru, where it would have been found in an elite home, used for storing edibles, like sweets, or coca leaves, or small pieces of jewelry or sewing items.

This work is made out of hardwood, with the decorative openwork patterns carved out of separate pieces of wood, and then affixed with tiny nails to the body of the box. The sharply cut bas-relief forms are typical of such wooden shell-shaped boxes. The beaded and foliate forms, along with the heads of cherubs, link this box to other 18th century woodwork. Such shell-shaped boxes were also made entirely out of silver. The form possibly originated, and certainly flourished, in South America. The silver clasp speaks not only to the luxury of this box, but also the taste for highly decorative objects to adorn the homes of those who could afford fine craftsmanship.

Many luxury products of wood were created in the Mojos region of the Amazon Basin, then sent to cities in the Andes, presumably to be sold on the open market. If that was the case here, the craftsman who created this box probably did so without a particular patron in mind.

The hardwood of this scallop-shaped box may have had its origins in the Mojos, the southernmost jungle region of the Amazon River Basin. Here, Jesuit fathers established large missions for native peoples with schools for carving and other crafts. These schools became famous for their woodwork and inlay, and, in the later part of the colonial period, Mojos workmanship—especially for furniture and decorative objects—was highly coveted. It measures 15 x 19 x 20 cm.

This elegant carved box may have once held coca leaves, which were chewed by all classes as a stimulant. Such boxes were also used to store yerba mate, an herb well-known in South America often made into tea, or sweets.

Sometime after this box was created, a quilted inner lining was added, leading scholars to suggest the box was converted into a jewelry or sewing case for an elite woman. The reuse of objects was not uncommon in Spanish America—although such practices are easier to trace in high-status settings where precious objects were often preserved and handed down across generations.

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.

Hecht, Johanna. 2004. “Coca box (coquera).” In The Colonial Andes: Tapestries and Silverwork, 1530-1830. Phipps, Elena, Johanna Hecht, and Cristina Esteras Martín, eds. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art and New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 341-342.

Museo de Arte de Lima. 1992. Museo de Arte de Lima: 100 obras maestros. Lima: Asociación Museo de Arte de Lima/Banco Latino.