Work of New Spain of the eighteenth century Chest,... Lot 42

Work of New Spain of the eighteenth century Chest, called "Petaca", with heraldic lions in strips of openwork leather, assembled in different ornamental patterns embroidered with agave threads, following the Spanish-Mexican technique of piteado. The decoration of the four sides and the lid of the chest presents crowned lions between foliage, fleur-de-lis and poppy flowers. This dense decoration, perfectly mastered, suggests that the decoration is based on a textile model, probably inspired by Indo-Portuguese bedspreads. The wooden frame is protected by a wrought iron frame and the lid is reinforced with three iron bars decorated with lions, hares, dogs and exotic animals. The lock with hasp, richly worked, is decorated with two medallions with lion and phoenix, engraved with dogs running. Lock and key in working condition. Handle on one side. Height 41 cm, width 70 cm, depth 44 cm (one handle missing, small tears and dents, twisted key, rest of velvet under the fittings, lower part of the base mouldings). Provenance : former collection of Isère. A 17th century New-Spain "Petaca" leather chest decorated with heraldic lions. Bibliography : - Mary Caroline Montano, "Tradiciones Nuevomexicanas : Hispano Arts and Culture of New Mexico", University of New Mexico Press, 2001, p. 103. - Bernal Díaz del Castillo, "Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España", Guillermo Serés edition, Madrid, Real Academia Española, 2011, p. 963. - Luis Torres de Mendoza, "Información hecha en México sobre averiguar si los indios de Nueva España regalaron al Marqués del Valle joyas u otras alhajas cuando volvió allí de España", "Colección de documentos inéditos relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y organización de las antiguas posesiones españolas de América y Oceanía", tome XII, Madrid, 1869, p. 532. - Marion Oettinger, "San Antonio 1718. Art from Mexico," Marion Oettinger Jr. Editions, Texas: Trinity University Press, San Antonio Museum of Art, p. 113. - María Paz Aguiló Alonso, "El mueble en España. Siglos XVI-XVII", Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Ediciones Antiqvaria, 1993, pp. 84-85. The petacas are perfectly referenced in the codices and chronicles of the New World, which describe these trunks that the indigenous Mesoamerican peoples used to store and transport goods. The association of this storage and transportation furniture with valuable contents is clearly reflected in a drawing in the Mendoza codex, dated around 1541, which depicts a thief stealthily opening a petaca. He is seen lifting the lid, a functional element that protected what was kept and symbolized the private sphere. Valuable objects kept in the petacas could be cotton blankets, rare feathers, clothes, religious objects or even sweets, such as cocoa. Bernal Díaz del Castillo testifies to another use of petacas, deploring indigenous idolatry: "they kept in wooden chests and others that they call petacas what they had in their domestic altars: idols of different sizes, but also stones, flints or booklets in which they wrote their facts and stories." The conquistadors made a particular use of the small petacas: they carried chocolate and the necessary utensils to drink it outside the domestic sphere. A petaca adapted to transport chocolate is found in the inventory of a certain Don Antonio Sedano y Mendoza. The tripartite division allowed to keep in its compartments pourers and cups to serve the chocolate during the trips. This example is now kept in the Archaeological Museum of Mexico City. Everything suggests that this petaca is part of the same production as those kept in the Cluny Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. They were made for the Spanish elite of New Spain, who reserved the use of horses as a means of transportation. A document kept in the Archives of the Indies in Seville, dated 1532, tells of the transfer, on the shoulders of natives in the service of Hernán Cortés, of a petaca loaded with gold jewels, which the Marquis del Valle had tried to send clandestinely to Spain from the port of Veracruz .... Luxurious trunks at the heart of transatlantic trade, these petacas, sometimes poorly identified, combine the most skilful techniques of pre-Columbian craftsmen with the clever iconography of the great aristocrats of the Old Continent. Each appearance of this exceptional furniture is an event, participating in the affirmation of a globalized economy.