Andean Artists in Colonial Quito: - College of William and Mary

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Andean Artists in Colonial Quito thatched roofs, a tiled roof suggests that Monga was of a higher status. A second document, dated 1677, declares that Monga is both the seller of the house and that he is a maestro escultor. 55 This establishes that, as early as 1677, sixteen years before the Cathedral commission, Monga was already a capable sculptor who bore the title of maestro. Additionally, the document indicates that Monga sold his house to his cousin, Andrés Monga, for one hundred pesos. 56 This house—located in the parish of San Sebastián—featured a roof covered in tile, with two small rooms and a patio. 57 Martin Minchom describes the San Sebastián as, “A dispersed semi-urban parish, mainly divided by a ravine from El Sagrario, with a low level of upper-class residence.” 58 Because of its tiled roof, this house suggests that Monga may have been one of the wealthier inhabitants of San Sebastián. To put this in perspective, Francisco Cantuña—an Andean master blacksmith and locksmith, a contemporary of Pauca and Monga— paid 580 pesos for a parcel of land, which Webster cites as “the price of a city lot with a good two-story, tile-roofed house.” 59 Though Monga may not have been quite as prolific as Cantuña, it is still significant that he not only had a house to sell, but was also able to buy his own house early in his career. A later venta de casa reveals that Juan Monga, the son of Francisco Monga and María Criolla, and his relatives—including Cristóbal Monga—sold a house in the elite Cathedral parish (El Sagrario) in 1731. 60 The house is described in the following manner: the said house is in the neighborhood of the hospital, in the parish of this the Holy Church of the Cathedral, that is composed of an upstairs room, and below it a shop on the corner and behind the shop a small room with a tile roof, a small patio… 61 Addressing the social status of the houses in Lima, Charles Walker asserts that a two-story house would have been a mark of great prestige. 62 Walker states, “Cabildo members came from Lima’s finest families, and many of them had two-story houses.” 63 Interestingly, this house also had a tienda, or shop, which Palmer believes to indicate “…the emergence of free enterprise in establishment of small businesses.” 64 Its presence suggests that Monga or his family members, as sculptors, may have sold their works there. This document also indicates that the wealth gained by Francisco Monga as a sculptor remained within the family. Furthermore, since Webster cites Cristóbal Monga as having received 51
52 The Monitor - Winter 2011 nominations by the City Council as maestro mayor of the sculptors’ and carpenters’ guilds in both 1718 and 1719, one may conclude that the familial wealth had only been increased by Francisco Monga’s successors. 65 It is difficult to determine whether or not the house purchased in 1670 was the same as the one sold in 1677. In the 1670 document, no mention of the location of the house is made. Furthermore, details given in the 1677 document—such as the patio—are not explicit in the earlier document. Nevertheless, it appears that Monga sold his house in 1677 in order to move into a larger house in the elite Cathedral parish, signifying that he had established himself as a wealthy, professional sculptor at this time. Through their repeated commissions for the Cathedral, it is evident that the skills of both Nicolas Pauca and Francisco Monga were in demand by the highest authorities, and they left their mark on Quito’s greatest symbol of religious power. Pauca’s significant commission for 2,200 pesos in 1699, which was even greater than Francisco Típan’s commission for the Jesuit Church for 1,800 pesos in 1694, makes it clear that Pauca was a force to be reckoned in the artistic world of colonial Quito. 66 Furthermore, because of Monga’s ventas de casas, it is clear that he too was well off as a result of his commissions. Based on documentary evidence from the notarial volumes, the examples of Pauca and Monga demonstrate that it is misleading to refer to the native artists of Quito as an anonymous mass. Through their accumulated wealth and prolific, artistic presence in recorded history, it is misleading and inappropriate to label these Andean artists “unschooled artisans trained as wood carvers.” 67 The archival documents that serve as solid evidence of Pauca and Monga’s commissions prove that the Quiteñan archives play a key role in understanding the art of colonial Quito and require greater attention in the future. Even Navarro [1929] avows that it is the archival documents that will save the colonial, native artists from being forgotten. 68 It is obvious that evidence crucial to the history of Quito lies undisturbed in the archives waiting to be rediscovered, while today’s citizens of Quito walk past churches that hold hundreds of unknown or wrongly-attributed works made by the hands of their own ancestors. Although Paucar and Monga’s Dolorosa may be the only work that remains today from their oeuvre, the notarial evidence demonstrates unequivocally that they were important contributors to Quito’s artistic history. Many other artists just like these maestros exist, waiting to be rediscovered and appropriately recognized in the future.
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Andean Artists in Colonial Quito: - College of William and Mary

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