Art of the Spanish Americas: Silver and Furniture

The art of the Spanish Americas is a curatorial area created at the Blanton in 2016. This selection of works comprises 67 pieces of furniture, some of which were produced in the former viceroyalties of Nueva Granada and Peru between 1650 and 1830 with local materials like the mopa mopa lacquer (barniz de pasto), turtle shell or bone. Other pieces were elaborated in Venezuela using Mahagony or Gateado wood, by travelling cabinet makers like Canarian Domingo Gutiérrez and United States-born Joseph P. Whiting. Although many of these objects are based on European models, others innovate in decoration and design, like the butacas, the prototypical Venezuelan chair. The 41 silver objects in the collection were made either for secular use or for religious spaces in colonial Argentina, Bolivia, Goa, Mexico, Peru, and Spain.

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