Crown of the Andes

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Crown of the Andes

The Crown of the Andes or Crown of Our Lady of the Assumption into Heaven of Popayán , Spanish La Corona de los Andes or La Corona de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Popayán , is a golden votive crown adorned with emeralds , which was originally used to adorn the Larger than life statue of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Popayán who served in the Cathedral of Popayán , Colombia .

The crown consists of several parts of different ages. The oldest component is the cross at the top, which is dated to the 16th century. The crown circlet was made around 1660 and the temples were added around 1770. In 1936, the Andean Crown was sold to a group of businessmen in the United States . In 2015 it was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City .

description

The crown has a height of 34.3 centimeters and a diameter of 33.7 centimeters. It weighs 2.18 kg and is made of hammered gold with 18 to 22 carats . It is decorated with 453 emeralds of different quality, the total weight of which is 1,523 carats . This makes it the largest and oldest compilation of emeralds on a single work of goldsmithing. The largest stone, the Atahualpa emerald , measures 15.8 × 16.15 millimeters and weighs 45 carats.

The crowning of the Virgin Mary statue in Popayán Cathedral was intended, as in the case of other crowned images of Mary, to honor Mary 's importance as Queen. Examples of Marian titles that refer to Mary as queen are Queen of the Apostles or Queen of Heaven . The crown ring is adorned with golden vine leaves, the emeralds are each embedded in golden flowers as a symbol of purity. The four temples of the crown each have three pear-shaped pendants with emeralds. They meet at a point on which there is a ball with a cross as a symbol of Christ's lordship over the world.

history

Statue of the Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Popayán (replica)

The pre-Columbian art of South America already produced a large number of goldsmith works . Most of the objects were melted down after the looting by the Spanish conquistadors and used for other purposes. One way of using the precious metals and gemstones obtained was the production of precious sacred art such as the crown of the Andes.

There are various legends about the origin of the crown of the Andes . The most common version reports that the crown was donated around 1590 in thanks for sparing the city of Popayán from a smallpox epidemic . Local nobles would have donated the crown, which had to surpass the crown of any ruling secular monarch in beauty, size and value in order to be appropriate to the Queen of Heaven. In 1599 the solemn coronation of the Virgin Mary took place in Popayán Cathedral. Several emeralds, including the largest one, the Atahualpa emerald , are said to have belonged to the Inca king Atahualpa (1497–1533) and were stolen after his capture by the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro in 1532.

Although the practice was controversial, statues of the Virgin Mary were often endowed with valuable gifts, including jewels and costly robes. The believers used such gifts to ask for the intercession of the Blessed Mother or to thank them for answers to prayer. The crown of the Andes is an outstanding example of goldsmithing in a region that owed its prosperity to the natural resources of gold and precious stones.

The expert Christopher Hartop , who examined the crown prior to an auction at Christie's in New York in 1995, took the view that the crown was composed of parts of different origins. He dated the cross at the top of the crown to the 16th century, the lower part to the 17th century and the arches with the ball carrying the cross to the 18th century. According to Hartop, the crown developed over a long period, beginning around 1599 with a golden diadem, which later had more and more extensions and additional decorations with emeralds.

For centuries the crown has been presented every year to celebrate Holy Week in Popayán . For security reasons, it is said to have been dismantled into six parts that were kept with local noblemen and only put back together for the festivities. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Immaculate Conception Lay Brotherhood (Cofradía de la Inmaculada Concepción), as the owner of the crown, obtained papal permission to sell in order to finance the construction of an orphanage, a hospital and a home for the elderly with the proceeds. Permission was by Pope in 1914 , Pius X granted. The Russian Tsar Nicholas II is said to have been interested in acquiring the crown for the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg , but this did not materialize due to the First World War , the October Revolution and the murder of the Tsar's family .

As early as 1915, the Chicago- based jeweler Warren J. Piper tried to raise funds to buy the crown. It wasn't until 1936 that it was sold for $ 125,000 to a group of American businesspeople around Piper, whose intention was to melt down the crown and sell the individual gemstones. In this context, Piper quoted a price of $ 3,000 for one carat of emeralds and a total weight of 1,500 carats, without mentioning the different quality of the stones. The press willingly reported a value of several million US dollars, although not even a million could be redeemed in the 1930s.

The crown was not destroyed, however; it was exhibited in the New York Waldorf Astoria Hotel in 1936 and repeatedly in various locations in the following decades. In 1937 General Motors showed the crown in Detroit , on the occasion of the presentation of the new models of the Chevrolet . On this occasion, the crown is said to have been admired by 225,000 visitors, about 15 percent of the city's population. From 1938 the crown was owned by the jewelers Oscar Heyman & Brothers in New York City . Further exhibitions took place at the 1939 New York World's Fair and 1959 at the Royal Ontario Museum .

On November 21, 1963, the Andean Crown was put up for auction at Sotheby’s in London and sold for £ 55,000 to the Asscher Diamond Company in Amsterdam , which acquired it on behalf of Oscar Heyman (1888–1970). After Heyman's death, the crown passed into the possession of his daughter Alice Heyman.

On November 20, 1995, the Andean Crown was put up for auction by Christie's in New York with an estimated price of three to five million US dollars , but remained unsold. Previously, the Crown of the Andes was presented on a world tour on several continents, with stops in London, Madrid, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Mexico City. The crown remained in the possession of Alice Heyman and was displayed in a special exhibition at the Indianapolis Museum of Art from October 2009 to January 2010 with works of Latin American sacred art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced the acquisition of the crown in December 2015, with unnamed sources citing a purchase price of $ 2.5 million.

  • Crown of the Andes
  • Crown of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, known as the Crown of the Andes MET DP365520.jpg
  • Crown of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, known as the Crown of the Andes MET DP365521.jpg
  • Crown of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, known as the Crown of the Andes MET DP365522.jpg
  • Crown of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, known as the Crown of the Andes MET DP365523.jpg

Provenance

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Crown of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, known as the Crown of the Andes , website of the Metropolitan Museum of Art , accessed October 10, 2018.
  2. ↑ La Corona de los Andes sale a subasta en 500 millones de pesetas , El País , September 19, 1995, accessed October 10, 2018.
  3. ^ Robert M. Shipley: Dictionary of Gems and Gemology, Fourth Edition, Gemological Institute of America, Los Angeles 1948, p. 57, keyword "Crown of the Andes".
  4. ↑ a b c d e Richard Emblin: Crown of the Andes sold on the cheap? , The City Paper (Bogotá), April 14, 2016, accessed October 10, 2018.
  5. ^ A b Metropolitan Museum of Art (ed.): Recent Acquisitions. A selection: 2014–2016. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin Fall 2016, PDF, 23 MB , accessed October 10, 2018.
  6. ↑ a b c d e Geraldine Norman: Crowning Glory of the Andes , The Independent on Sunday , June 18, 1995, accessed October 10, 2018.
  7. ↑ Ken Kusmer: Indianapolis museum displays art of “Sacred Spain” , USA Today , December 2, 2009, accessed October 10, 2018.

Web links

Commons : Crown of the Andes  - Collection of images, videos and audio files