New material connections in a mother-of-pearl Enconchado from the Viceroyalty of New Spain

Abstract

Adoration of the Magi (ca. 1695–1700), an enconchado painting attributed to Miguel González, active in Mexico in the late seventeenth century, exemplifies the refinement of the arts produced in Spanish America as a response to the taste for Asian goods during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The painting and its original mother-of-pearl inlaid frame were examined and analyzed using non-invasive and micro-sampling methods, an approach that permitted answering outstanding questions about the stratigraphy, pigments, and the use of shells throughout the painting and frame. The identification of the mother-of-pearl, determined to be from a Pinctada species, was a central focus of this study. In addition to the inlaid shells in the painting and frame, shell fragments were observed mixed with gypsum in the ground preparation of the painting by SEM–EDS. To our knowledge, this is a novel identification of marine shells in the ground of an easel painting. Traces of workmanship in the inlaid shells observed by SEM and optical microscopy are possibly connected to pre-Hispanic methodologies of mother-of-pearl refinement. Graphical Abstract