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In the Hands of Devotees

Indigenous and Black Confraternities and the Creation of Visual Culture in Colonial Lima
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2025

About this book

An exploration of how Indigenous and Black communities shaped religious imagery and navigated life in colonial Lima.

Colonial Lima was steeped in Christian devotional imagery. While Spaniards set the norms for these works, it was the city’s Black and Indigenous majority that engaged with them most. As members of lay societies of worshippers called confraternities, subalterns were Lima’s key promoters of religious art, surpassing the colonial hierarchy.

Ximena Gómez argues that, by commissioning and exhibiting sacred images—in chapels and urban processions, adorned with clothing and accessories—Indigenous and Black confraternities created Lima’s visual culture. In one case study, the Indigenous confraternity of the Virgin of Copacabana "invisibly" transforms a sculpture into an object that reflected its multiethnic Andean caretakers. Another case study, that of the confraternity of the Virgin of the Antigua, finds Black worshippers initially united in their interpretation of a Spanish image and later fracturing when some of its members applied a West African interpretive lens. Taking advantage of Lima’s rich documentary record, In the Hands of Devotees centers the ritual practices of Black and Indigenous people and opens possibilities for incorporating subalterns into the history of Lima’s art when limited extant visual evidence has survived.

Reviews

In in this extraordinary study, Ximena Gómez recovers the long-neglected central role Indigenous and Black lay Catholic associations, or confraternities, played in shaping colonial Lima’s visual culture as artists, patrons, and consumers. Gómez reminds us of the significance of these institutions in the daily and collective lives of Indigenous and Black Limeños as they engaged with the city and the Spanish empire’s material culture to express their subaltern Catholic subjectivities and carve their own space in that world. Methodologically bold and beautifully written, her book will reshape many fields of study.
— Miguel A. Valerio, University of Maryland, author of Sovereign Joy: Afro-Mexican Kings and Queens, 1539–1640

Ximena Gómez has written a major contribution to the history of Latin American art that shines for its clarity of prose, purpose, and methodology. It is a transformative contribution that will no doubt inspire scholars to follow in its footsteps and strive to shed light on the many overlooked dimensions of the histories of art.
— Cécile Fromont, Harvard University, editor of Afro-Catholic Festivals in the Americas: Performance, Representation, and the Making of Black Atlantic Tradition

Topics

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    Frontmatter

    i
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    Contents

    ix
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    List of Illustrations

    xi
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    Abbreviations

    xv
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    Introduction

    1
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  • PART I
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    1. Curating Sacred Images and Interactions

    31
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    2. Inside the Church

    45
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    3. Fiestas and Processions

    61
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  • PART II
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    4. The Continuous Creation of the Virgin of Copacabana

    81
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    5. A Virgin from Seville, Contentious Goods, and a Black Confraternity

    117
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    6. From Ira to Imagen and Back

    135
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    Conclusion

    155
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    Acknowledgments

    161
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    Appendices

    165
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    Glossary

    175
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    Notes

    177
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    Bibliography

    205
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    Index

    221
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
September 9, 2025
eBook ISBN:
9781477332412
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
View content
https://doi.org/10.7560/332405
eBook ISBN: 9781477332412
Keywords for this book
colonial confraternities; racial caste system; colonialism; colonial art; Latin American Indigenous art; Black art; religiosity; visual culture
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
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