Portland Art Museum: Spanish Colonial Art (museum exhibition)

by Ojibwa for Museums

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Wednesday, Dec. 03, 2025 Wednesday, Dec. 03, 2025 at 7:15:11am PST

The Portland Art Museum (PAM) in Portland, Oregon held an exhibition, Highest Heaven: Andean Art from the Elvin Duerst Bequest, featuring art from the Spanish viceregal or colonial period from 1521 until the revolutions led by Simon Bolivar in 1821.

According to PAM:

“The violent conquest of the Americas by Iberian powers, beginning the sixteenth century, did not displace the peoples of the Incan and Aztec empires. Artists and artisans applied their advanced skills to the new religion of Christianity, producing an iconography and style completely new and reflective of their ancient cultures.”

Elwin Duers (1915-2006), Oregon-born and educated, was an American foreign aid worker who spent years in Central and South America. According to his obituary in The Oregonian:

“He collected American contemporary and Spanish colonial art and did some research in the field of Spanish colonial art of the 16th to 18th centuries.”

Saint Joseph Carrying the Christ Child

Made in the mid-18^th century by an unidentified artist; oil on copper or tin

Ecce Homo

Made between 1590 and 1610 by an unidentified artist; oil on canvas mounted on panel.

The Virgin Crowned by the Holy Trinity

Made in the mid-17^th century by an unidentified artist; oil on wood

Virgin and Child

Made between 1575 and 1610 by an unidentified artist; oil on copper

According to PAM:

“The artist painted on copper, which was precious to the Incas and a reference to the sun god. European artists appreciated copper for its smoothness and durability. Copper does not shrink or warp, which preserves the painting better than wood or canvas, but at great expense.”

Landscape

Made in the 1700s by an unidentified artist; oil on canvas

P1560158 — Shown above is a detail from the painting. Both the style of the boat and the style of the hat are still in use.

P1560159 — Another detail from the painting

Saint Clare with a Monstrance

Made about 1600 and attributed to Ecuadorian artist Andrés Sánchez Gallque; oil on canvas

According to PAM:

“Saint Clare was a follower of Saint Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) who lived a life of chastity, poverty, prayer, and charity. She founded an order of nuns, and when her convent was attacked, she repelled the invaders by showing them this vessel, known as a monstrance. Andrés Sánchez Gallque was an indigenous man who trained with European artists in Quito. Franciscan monks and nuns came to the Andes relatively early in colonial history,”