While we gear up for the 2026 opening of the new David Geffen Galleries, our collection of Spanish American art has been steadily expanding. Many of our recent additions will be featured next year in our new building, emphasizing the centrality of a region that has been largely overlooked in mainstream museums.
Among our latest acquisitions is a striking 18th century Eucharistic pelican with outstretched wings, standing on a lavish octagonal pedestal. This imposing sculptural object was created in Bolivia, which was part of the Viceroyalty of Peru. The work can be traced to a collection in Buenos Aires in the 1950s.
Pelicans were a traditional symbol of Christ’s sacrifice for humanity. Comparable containers were made earlier in Spain but the most impressive examples hail from the Viceroyalty of Peru in the 1700s. The large opening in the front was used to store the consecrated host, or perhaps a chalice. The resplendent birds were displayed on the main altar, often stacked on other elements to increase their prominence from afar.
This is the largest known work of its type, which also stands out due to the extravagant use of silver. All the elements—body, neck and head, wings, tail, legs, and base—were wrought separately. Few people are aware that silver, a material commonly used today to fashion inexpensive jewelry, was once a coveted commodity that fueled the global economy for nearly three centuries, linking the globe together from sea to sea. The material was closely associated with empire-building from the 16th through the 18th centuries. Much of the world’s silver was mined in Peru (and later Mexico), from where it was shipped as far as India, Japan, and China.
In 1545, the Spaniards stumbled upon the world’s richest silver deposit, the Cerro Rico, or Rich Hill of Potosí, in Bolivia. The mine fueled a veritable silver bonanza, attracting people from every corner of the world hoping to strike it rich. The city also drew hundreds of Indigenous laborers (mitayos), who, along with enslaved Africans, were forced to work under dismal conditions to extract the precious metal.
Silver objects fulfilled both practical and symbolic functions. They were used to embellish churches and the homes of the elite across the viceroyalty of Peru (a large geopolitical area at encompassed present-day Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela, Panama, Colombia, Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile) and to signal the proverbial wealth of viceregal society. Some were sent to Spain by pious indianos (prosperous Spaniards who emigrated to Spanish America for a stretch of time and remained loyal to their homeland). Master silversmiths capitalized on the expertise of Indigenous artists who had worked with the material for millennia, drawing on European traditions and motifs to satisfy newly developed forms of taste.
What’s kind of remarkable about this life-size object is that it looks more like a chajá (or Southern Screamer) than a pelican. Measuring around 35 inches tall, the chajá is one of the largest birds of southern South America, distinguished by its long legs and tail and small head and beady eyes.
The silversmiths seem to have modeled their vessel on a locally abundant bird instead of a pelican, which they might have never seen. Their attention to detail made the sculpture more lifelike. Note the delicate feathers covering its big, round body, and the gleaming eyes made of clear glass set against a red foil backing to enhance its powerful stare. All these details demonstrate the great skill with which the urn was created, and how traditional Western symbols were refashioned to suit the new forms of religiosity that developed in the Andes.
Fascinated by the craftmanship of the work, our objects conservators are examining it more closely and will soon be publishing some further thoughts about what it took to create this imposing artifact. Stay tuned!
Selected Reading
Esteras, Cristina. Platería del Perú virreinal, 1535–1825. Exh. cat. Madrid: Grupo BBV; Lima: Banco Continental, 1997.
Kusunoki, Ricardo and Luis Eduardo Wuffarden, eds. Plata en los Andes. Exh. cat. Lima: Asociación Museo de Arte de Lima-MALI, 2018.
Lane, Kris. Potosí: The Silver City that Changed the World. Oakland: University of California Press, 2019.
Phipps, Elena, Johanna Hecht, and Cristina Esteras Martín, eds. The Colonial Andes: Tapestries and Silverwork, 1530–1830. Exh. cat. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004.