Painter from El Tocuyo, Saint Michael the Archangel with Saints Francis Xavier and Francis of Assisi, 1682. Oil paint on canvas; 34 × 23¼ in. Gift of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros in honor of Carlos Duarte, 2019.74.

height: 34 in, 86.3600 cm; width: 23 1/4 in, 59.0550 cm

Mayer Center, Latin American Art

Latin American Art

This object is currently on view

Nestled in a fertile valley just over a hundred miles south of the port city of Coro, El Tocuyo was the center of the Spanish conquest of central Venezuela, providing colonizers with foodstuffs and cattle. Among the city’s most valuable commodities was the so-called Tocuyo linen, a coarse cotton fabric traded as far south as the Peruvian highlands and central Chile.

El Tocuyo’s flourishing economy enabled the building and ornamentation of several fine churches. The constant demand for religious artworks sustained a local community of artists throughout the colonial period, and stylistic similarities have allowed art historians to ascribe a number of colonial paintings to workshops in El Tocuyo. This canvas is one of nearly a dozen attributed to the Painter from El Tocuyo, an unidentified artist active between the late 1600s and early 1700s. An inscription on the verso “VToRc / Franco De / La +” has led some to identify the painter as Francisco de la Cruz and conjecture that he may have been a Spanish-born cleric associated with the Convent of Saint Francis. This hypothesis has yet to be confirmed.

The painting’s size suggests that it may have been commissioned for a church. Although archangels were a popular theme in Spanish American colonial art, this painting includes two saints rarely depicted together: Saint Francis of Assisi, who established the Franciscan Order, and Saint Francis Xavier, a 1500s Spanish missionary and co-founder of the Society of Jesus. The unusual iconographic choice may reflect the fluid dynamic of missionary work in Venezuela. The rigid figures, rendered with stylized hands; deeply socketed, almond-shaped eyes; and heavy eyelids, are characteristic of the artist, as is the color palette of predominantly ocher, sepia, brown, and yellow tones. The luxuriant gold patterning of Saint Michael’s clothing and the gracefully rendered lace undergarment suggest that the artist may have been inspired by paintings from the Peruvian highlands, which often featured beautiful textiles.

– Jorge Rivas Pérez, Frederick and Jan Mayer Curator of Latin American Art, 2019

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.

• "Power and Piety: Spanish Colonial Art" — Society of the Four Arts, 3/19/2016 - 4/17/2016
• Loyola University Museum of Art, 8/20/2016 - 11/12/2016
• Appleton Museum of Art, College of Central Florida 12/3/2016 - 2/26/2017
• Dixon Gallery and Gardens, 7/1/2017 - 9/24/2017
• Figge Art Museum, 10/14/2017 - 1/7/2018
• Middlebury College Museum of Art, 1/26/2018 - 4/22/2018