The Presenters: biographies & abstracts

Biography
Veronica Guadalupe Herrera Rivera was born in Mexico City on October 23, 1981. She holds a Bachelors degree in History from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. She received a degree in Art History in the same institution, a Masters Degree in History of Catholicism in Mexico from the Universidad Pontificia de México, and she is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Art History at UNAM. She has taken part as a speaker in several national and international conferences. She has been teaching for thirteen years in Catholic universities. Her lines of investigation are the Inquisitorial Processes on Amorous Sorcery of seventeenth century in New Spain and its influence in the popular religiosity and Viceroyalty paintings like artistic expression of devotion of the believer. She is currently taking part of the project of the exposition Vaticano, de San Pedro a Francisco. Obras maestras de los Museos Vaticanos to be exhibited in the spring of the following year in the Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso in Mexico City.

Abstract
The Altarpiece of the Mystical Saints of the Chapel Medina Picazo
The Ex Convent of Regina Coeli in Mexico City has a unique eighteenth-century chapel, which stands out for its architecture as well as its private use. In it we find an overwhelming decorative program that catches the view of the investigator and the devotion of the believer. The chapel was built by don Buenaventura Medina Picazo, chaplain of the former convent of Nuestra Señora de la Natividad de Regina Coeli. The patron ordered that it be decorated with objects from his personal chapel. Don Buenaventura died 4 years before the consecration of the chapel in 1735, but left detailed instructions in his testament for the culmination of this work. This space has three altarpieces and an exquisite decoration from the dome to the floor. We will focus the analysis in the paintings of the altarpiece of the mystical saints painted by Nicolás Rodríguez Juárez and that, together with the opposite altarpiece of the Calvary and the frontal one on the life of Mary, form an image program oriented to the almost domestic devotion, but also at the same time inserted in the conventual practices.

Biography
Diana López Meléndez was born in Mexico City. She received a Bachelors degree in History from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) where she is currently enrolled in the graduate program of Art History. She has focused in the Mexican colonial period, particularly in the architectural and devotional practices in the Mexican state of Puebla in the early sixteenth century. Her research has yielded two studies: From the Hills to the Valley: the Stages of Monastic Construction in Cuautinchan, 1527-1593, and First Buildings and Resettlements In the Puebla Regions: Franciscan Architecture in Tehuacan and Zacatlan in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (in development). During her graduate studies, she has explored other topics, such as sixteenth- and seventeenth-century painting and engraving and the utilitarian and decorative arts in New Spain.

Abstract
Strings, Keys, and Embellishments: The Visual and Auditory Experience of the Musical Instruments in the New Spain, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
Within the musical repertoire in the New Spain, one could find the sones, the valonas, the corridos, and the romances. The aristocracy preferred melodies with human voices and instrumental accompaniment. It was in their homes where one could listen to harps, guitars, Spanish lutes, harpsichords, clavichords, and organs. Thus, their banquets and social gatherings were entertained by a varied musical repertoire. Not only was there an auditory delight; the wonderful keyboard instruments were a visual marvel as they were designed with paintings and embellishments that hailed from sculpture and architecture. These instruments were decorated with gallantries, hunting scenes, episodes from classic mythology, biblical episodes, etc., which aimed to represent the aristocratic way of life while showcasing cultural status. These instruments were part of the furnishings meant to be put on display to prove the aristocratic power and social status. This was the case of the Duchess of San Jorge, the Count of San Bartolomé de Xala, and the Marquis of Jaral y Berrio. 

Biography
Andreia Martins Torres is a researcher at CHAM (FCSH, UNL and UAç), and NEAP (UFG). She holds a B.A in archaeology (UNL) and a Masters Degree in American History (UCM). In the last few years she enjoyed a research grant by FCT to pursue her PhD investigation in History and Archaeology at UCM. During this time she reflected on trade and the use of glass beads from a transdisciplinary perspective that combined archaeology, history and the anthropology of art. For this purpose she carried out several research stays in different museums, archives and institutions, both in Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Brazil, Spain and Portugal. She carried out ethnographic fieldwork in Oaxaca (México), focused on the "traditional glass necklaces" to reflect on the impact of historical discourse and museographic options. She participated in research projects in several areas and in collaboration with international institutions. At the same time, she has been working on clothing and textiles through historical records, archaeology and museums collections, especially on Kimono and print cotton in the viceroyalty of New Spain, since the 16th century, and with a global history perspective.

Abstract
The Kimono in New Spain and the Representation of Creole Identity in the 18th Century
This paper aims to include New Spain in the debates about the spread of Asian gowns, or inspired by these models, in the Western world. During the 18th century the use of this type of garment became fashionable among the privileged classes throughout Europe. This subject has motivated several articles. The main authors have focused on the market and dissemination networks of the Dutch and British merchants. In other cases, they pay attention to the symbolic meanings, but the context of the Iberian empires or their territories in America still have not been incorporated into these reflections.

The close contacts with Asia and their role in the circulation of objects of that origin justify the pertinence of considering their contribution to the diffusion of this fashion and the particular circumstances in which it was literally incorporated into the wardrobe of each province. 

I focus exclusively on the case of New Spain to analyze the role played by the kimono in the dynamics of ostentation and social differentiation throughout the 18th century, corresponding to the period of greatest incidence in the region. For this purpose, archival sources, such as inventories of personal property or stores, as well as pictorial and literary references will be taken into account. Considering that dressing is an important way for the social construction of the individual and their self-representation, I will recover the meaning of the garment for the Spanish "casta", who are often associated with kimonos in artistic narratives. I will ultimately demonstrate how those clothes, named with a word of Japanese origin, served to complement decorative programs of display that included the body.

Biography
Cynthia Neri Lewis received a B.A. in Art History from Pomona College, Claremont, and an M.A. in Art History from California State University, Fullerton. She is currently a Professor of Art History at Rio Hondo College in Whittier, California and a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Riverside. She specializes in the colonial art of the Americas, with an emphasis on the missions of California and the art of the Spanish borderlands.  In her current research, she attempts to join the “local” history of California mission art with the larger narratives of North American and Spanish art. In addition to investigating the connections between Jesuit and Franciscan mission art and iconography, she is also interested in 20th and 21st -century collecting and display strategies and representations of the missions in 19th-century paintings and early photographs.

Abstract
Retablos and Facades: The Staging of the Baroque in the California Missions
The California missions founded and built by Junípero Serra (1770-1782) and his successor, Fermín Lasuén (1786-1823) reside just between two different traditions in terms of their stylistic tendencies, aesthetic programs and display practices. While Serra’s pre-modern collecting approach favored a “Baroque Catholicism,” the post 1771 dictates from both the Church and the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City imposed a Neoclassical idiom.  The resulting presentations of Novohispanic Baroque paintings on a modern stage fulfilled the didactic and evangelical purposes of the Franciscans, but also reveal the ways by which they attempted to situate and maintain their position between the pre-modern and modern Catholic worlds.  Through an analysis and comparison of the visual programs presented via retablos and stone facades of selected California missions, the impact of the Serran agenda on mission-era and later perceptions of the Baroque in California will be considered. After the secularization of the missions in the 1830s and continuing into the early 20th century, the staging of Baroque art and architecture within the mission spaces served different purposes, namely, the visual representation of colonial memory and the construction of a Spanish fantasy heritage for California. 

Biography
Elsaris Núñez Méndez is a doctoral candidate in Art History with a primary field in Viceregal Art at the College of Arts of Philosophy and Letters at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She also holds a Masters degree in Art History  from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History from the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras Campus. She was a pre-doctoral fellow of the College of Arts & Sciences at UIUC (2010-2012) and currently is a graduate fellow of the National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico  (CONACYT) (2014- Present). She was a curatorial assistant at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston for the exhibition Made in the Americas. The New World Discovers Asia (2015). She is co-author of the book La catedral de Puebla. Una mirada (2015), and has produced articles and chapters for specialized publications.

Abstract
Praying through for the Senses: An Approach to the Ochavo Chapel from its Artistic and Votive Collection
The Ochavo Chapel in the cathedral of Puebla has been consistently considered as one of the few religious spaces that still portrays the baroque splendor of its original decoration. Built and decorated between 1682 and 1688, this chapel presents an unusual octagonal plan and an eclectic decorative program that has led scholars to defend its uniqueness and, especially, to consider it as the cathedral's treasury or even more, as the first kunstkammer in the Americas. New documentary findings allow me, however, to question such secularizing interpretations and to propose, instead, an interpretation of this space and its artistic and votive collection from a different perspective. This paper questions and analyzes the changes to which both its architecture and altarpieces have been exposed, including the disappearance of certain lighting and optic resources, as well as devotional ones, that were essential for the display of painting- on- copper panels, feather-work mosaics, formerly- present lead, ivory and silver sculptures, and a great number of reliquaries and agnus dei waxes. In this way, this paper aims at exploring the role of the devotional image in a complex context in which the interpretation of the altarpieces does not respond to traditional criteria. Stemming from contemporary descriptions it is possible then to examine the role of elements that are no longer present in the chapel and that were once essential for the establishment of a votive hierarchy that potentially influenced the viewing experience of prelates praying in this space prior Mass time. Through this approach, this paper aims at addressing the spiritual function of the multimedia experience the chapel's decorative program offered in relation to contemporary takes on meditation through the senses.

Biography
Isabel Oleas-Mogollón is a doctoral candidate in Art History at University of Delaware. She studied chemistry and art conservation in Quito, Ecuador. Thanks to a Fulbright scholarship, she obtained her Masters in Art History at Delaware in 2012. Isabel specializes in Spanish colonial art with a focus on religious painting from Quito. Isabel is also interested in Technical Art History and the intersections between art and science.

Abstract
Illusion and Artifice: Reflective Materials in Quito’s Jesuit Church
“The church of La Compañía is one of the most famous buildings in South America due to its extraordinary beauty, lavishness and its noble design. Many Europeans claim that this church would stand out even in the most remarkable European cities, including Rome.” These enthusiastic words, written by Mario Cicala in the eighteenth century, sum the awe that the richness of the interior of Quito’s Jesuit church continues to inspire. La Compañía’s gilded vault and altarpieces, its bejeweled statues of the Virgin and saints, its liturgical objects made of silver and gold, and the mirrors located in the side altars were certain to provoke admiration. Splendor, far from only showcasing the wealth of the Society of Jesus, served to underline the role of artistic skill in the elevation of Christian devotion. This paper addresses the importance of wonder in Jesuit art patronage by studying how the use and manipulation of reflective materials related to early modern interpretations of divine artifice and illusionism.

Biography
Kelsey Rozema is an M.A. candidate at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, in the department of Art History, and is a current recipient of the AOP fellowship award. Her past research included an analysis of the body and power of court dwarfs in Early Modern Spain. Kelsey’s current research interests include the representation and display of women in Early Modern New Spain. Her thesis analyzes the connection of monjas coronadas portrait to elite families in New Spain.

Abstract
Displaying Legitimacy: Monjas Coronadas Portraits within the Home
Current scholarship pertaining to the study of the monjas coronadas (crowned nun) portraits focuses on their semiotic value in New Spain. Modern scholars, when discussing this genre of portraiture, focus on how the iconography of the images reflected the budding Creole culture. However, scholarship has yet to address the function of monjas coronadas portraits within the New Spanish home. This paper will address this gap in scholarship by examining how the portraits were displayed. I will specifically look at the role and influence of the portraits within the secular realm of the New Spanish family.

My paper aims to answer the question: how does the display of the monjas coronadas portraits affect their function within New Spain? Current scholars on monjas coronadas portraits do not examine the potential ways the paintings would be displayed within the Creole home. Focusing on the iconography of the monjas coronadas portraits does not allow for a satisfactory explanation on the display of the paintings. Instead of using a semiotic approach, my argument relates the images to material culture, and the thematic programming of Habsburg salons . Using the exhibition catalogue, Behind Closed Doors: Art in the Spanish American Home, 1492–1898, as a frame work, my paper shows that by relating the portraits to the display of other portraits in elite spaces, the room in which the monjas coronadas were displayed can be defined. By defining this room, my paper will then be able to address how the display of the portraits enables the paintings to perform their secular function: legitimizing the family’s elite status within New Spanish society. 

Biography
Andreína was born and raised in Venezuela, where she obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Historical Anthropology from Universidad Central de Venezuela in 2011. For her undergraduate thesis, Al bien de los reinos y a la mayor exaltacion de la Fe, she analyzed the significance of public ceremonies in the social and political system of Caracas during the eighteenth century. In 2016, she received her MA in History at Villanova University where she concentrated in Atlantic world history and researched social mobility, identity formation, local religion and ritual practices in Spanish-America. Last year, she also published her first article, “Purchasing the Status: Religious Confraternities in Late-Colonial Venezuela,” an analysis about the role of religious brotherhoods as spaces of socio-racial and economic alliances for people of mixed-race and of African descent, in the Villanova graduate journal Concept. Andreína is currently a PhD student at University of California, Santa Barbara. She is specializing in Latin American history, Early Modern Europe, Race and Ethnicity, and developing her research on religious confraternities in the Province of Venezuela.

Abstract
¡El Rey ha Muerto! ¡Viva el Rey!  Political Ceremonies and Royal Symbols in Caracas’ Public Space, 1789-1790
This paper studies the role visual culture played during the performance of political ceremonies in late-colonial Caracas as symbols of power that helped renovate monarchic power and legitimize the social and political status of local institutions. Through the analysis of archival documents, this paper closely looks at public ceremonies in the city of Caracas during the years 1789 and 1790, when the city council –managed by the white creoles- executed the funerary acts for the late King Charles III and the proclamation of his successor, Charles IV. My research argues the city council used the visual culture displayed in these ceremonies as a strategy to safeguard their own legitimacy during the transition of power. By controlling the construction of a sumptuous burial mound at the Caracas Cathedral and designing a royal banner with the city’s emblem next to the monarchy’s coat of arms, the councilmen tried to create a symbolic connection with the “body politic” of the king to reassert their local authority. Moreover, the conflicts produced by the councilmen’s actions reveal how they used political ceremonies and visual culture to counteract the changes that, due to the Bourbon Reforms, affected their jurisdiction in the city of Caracas.

Biography
Emily Thames is a Ph.D. Candidate and Patricia Rose Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Art History at Florida State University and the 2016-2017 Joe and Wanda Corn Predoctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Museum of American History. She studies the visual and material culture of colonial Spanish America and the Caribbean (c. 1500-1900), and her dissertation project focuses on the work of José Campeche (1751-1809), a prolific artist who lived and worked in San Juan, Puerto Rico during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In her research, Emily considers Campeche as an individual intricately entangled within his specific historical milieu, a simultaneous product and agent of cultural change and transformation in Puerto Rico during his lifetime. She examines the under-investigated significance of the artist’s race, Spanish imperial agendas, creole and proto-national identity in Puerto Rico, and the role of images in Spanish colonial societies. In her exploration of these themes, she examines how Campeche, a complex Afro-Caribbean figure, negotiated and acted upon his world through his art.

Abstract
José Campeche and Portraiture in Late Eighteenth-Century San Juan, Puerto Rico
Portraits served a variety of purposes and appeared in myriad settings in late eighteenth-century San Juan, Puerto Rico. During grand state events, likenesses of the reigning monarchs were displayed on the Plaza de Armas. Official portraits of colonial officials were placed on view in the Fortaleza and Cabildo, and depictions of church leaders appeared in the Archbishop’s Palace. Wealthy individuals displayed portraits in their homes, and likenesses of nuns adorned the walls of the convents in which they lived and served. In this paper, I examine specific portraits created by José Campeche (1751-1809), a prolific artist active in the city during this time, as case studies to consider the different ways in which San Juan society utilized portraits and to raise questions about the commission and display of such works. I argue that though Campeche’s portraits vary in their formal qualities and purposes, they can be considered together as individual components of a thriving image culture that emerged on the island during the era of military and economic reform under the Bourbon regime when the urban landscape and population of the city underwent drastic changes.

Biography
Dario Velandia studied literature at Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá), attained a Masters in Advanced Studies in Art history at University of Barcelona, and a PhD in Art history at the same University. He obtained a “Cum Laude” degree for his PhD dissertation Hacia una teología de la imagen. Mística, oratoria y pintura en la España del Siglo de Oro. He currently is an assistant professor in the Art History department at the Universidad de los Andes. His areas of interest include Golden Age Spanish painting and literature, colonial art, medieval art, and art theory and interdisciplinary studies between art and literature. His current research project is entitled The Counter-reform Impact in Visual Arts during the XVI and XVII Centuries in Various Territories of the Hispanic Monarchy. His main publications include: “Jaime Prades y las imágenes sagradas. La defensa de su adoración y uso”, Hispania Sacra 69, nº 189 (2017); “No sólo palabras. El uso de imágenes en la predicación postridentina en Cataluña,” in Imatge, devoció i identitat a l’època moderna, 2014; and “¿Teatro en el púlpito? La oratoria sagrada española del siglo XVII.” In Perífrasis. Revista de Literatura, teoría y crítica 3, nº 5 (2012).

Abstract
Religious Visual Culture during the 17th Century in the New Kingdom of Granada in Light of the Doctrinal Temples: The cases of Sutatausa, Turmequé, Suesca, and Chivatá
During the 17th century in the New Kingdom of Granada, several places worked as decorative programs of display. Each of these spaces were part of a complex system in which the meanings arose from the contact of the spectator and the artistic devices. One of the first and most important places of display was the Templos doctrineros (doctrinal temples). These buildings were erected during the second half of the sixteenth century and throughout the seventeenth century in the various territories of the New Kingdom of Granada and fulfilled a clear objective: to be the main vehicle for evangelization and Christianization of the indigenous peoples. The iconographic programs that decorated the interior of its walls are a testimony of Neogranadine religious visual culture in colonial times as they show the function of images and their particular relationship with the spectators. Based on the study of four cases (Sutatausa, Turmequé, Suesca and Chivatá), this paper aims to approach doctrinal temples from two perspectives: the possible reconstruction of their original decoration and the study of the deterioration of these spaces.