Divino Rostro 1953 Mexican Ex Voto Retablo Head Tumor Healed 11 in For Sale
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Divino Rostro 1953 Mexican Ex Voto Retablo Head Tumor Healed 11 in:
$295.00
Price
$295 | Free worldwide shipping
DescriptionA narrative ex-voto painted in oil on tin in 1953 in Zapopan, Jalisco, for Matilde Morales Flores. She thanks the Divino Rostro and the Santo Niño de Atocha for healing her of a tumor in her head. She was close to death and prayed for her life from her sickbed. After the operation, she recovered.
The whole panel is laid on a gold ground. At upper left, the Divino Rostro appears on Veronica’s veil: the Holy Face of Christ crowned with green thorns and streaked with blood, on a pale cloth knotted at both upper corners. Beside it, the Santo Niño de Atocha sits in a green chair in a wide red hat, his dress covered in pink roses on yellow. He holds his pilgrim’s staff hung with a gourd and a red ribbon, with his basket at his side. At right, Matilde kneels in profile in a red dress with a blue-green rebozo over her head, holding a tall lit candle. The inscription runs in eight lines of dark green lettering across the gold below them. It measures 11 inches wide by 9.5 inches high (28 x 24 cm).
It comes from the same source as the rest of my retablos: one unknown painter who never signed his work and has since died. Families commissioned his pieces and took them to their village churches.
An elderly custodian at one of those churches has been collecting this painter’s work for decades. A picker who travels the small village churches brought it to my dealer, and my dealer brought it to me.
None of those links is documented on paper, so I give it to you as the path it traveled, not as a chain of title.
The inscription
As painted:
“Gracias Divino rostro par Sanarme De Un Tumar en la Cabeza: Hiba a Fallecer: Rogue Par mi ViDa Pastrada, Pedi al niña De aTacHa, Tambien, Par mi Vida Matilde Morales Flores 1953 Zapapan Jal. Me aperarán i Sane Milagro conce Vida. Gracias Par mi vida: Recuerda de gratitud...”
In English:
“Thank you, Divine Face, for healing me of a tumor in my head. I was about to die. Laid low, I begged for my life, and I asked the Niño de Atocha for my life as well. Matilde Morales Flores, 1953, Zapopan, Jalisco. They operated on me and I recovered. A miracle granted. Thank you for my life. In grateful remembrance...”
The spelling is the painter’s own. His habit of forming o’s like a’s runs all through it: par for por, Tumar for tumor, Pastrada for postrada, niña for Niño, aTacHa for Atocha, Zapapan for Zapopan, aperarán for operaron and Recuerda for recuerdo. Hiba stands for iba and Rogue for rogué. Conce Vida, split across two lines, stands for concedido. He writes i for y, and his g’s in Gracias and Milagro carry the same long tailed stroke. Irregularities like these are part of what makes the piece genuine.
Condition
Good for its age. The paint is stable and the inscription is legible throughout.
Fine craquelure runs across the whole gold ground and through the red dress. There is a nail hole at top center, above the Santo Niño’s hat, with a small torn loss around it. A paint loss with a small rust bloom crosses the word vida in the last line, and two smaller flake losses sit just above it. There is a small white flake loss near the upper right corner.
The verso is bare tin with rust spotting across the whole sheet, heavier toward the left, and a few red paint drips along one edge.
Appraisal
Grade: B+
This is a complete narrative ex-voto. It is dated, placed and named, and it records a tumor in the head, an operation and a recovery. It invokes two devotions in one panel, the Divino Rostro and the Santo Niño de Atocha, set on a gold ground. The craquelure through the gold and the loss across the last line hold it below an A. Graded against realized sales of this painter’s work.
Gallery replacement value: $600. This is what it would cost to replace this piece through a gallery, for insurance and estate purposes.
About the photographs
Some photographs show the retablo staged in a home setting. Those backgrounds are digitally created only to help you imagine the piece in a room. The painting itself is unaltered and untouched in every image. Plain-background photographs of the actual piece are included as well. Only the retablo is included.
Shipping and import fees
The price includes DHL Express shipping anywhere in the world, with tracking. The piece is packed by Diseños de Cartón in Guadalajara.
Import duty and tax are the buyer’s responsibility. The tariff code is 9701.91, hand-painted original art. Most markets let it in duty-free, and it qualifies for a reduced tax rate wherever one exists.
When it arrives, open the box along the seams; never cut down into it.
If your delivery country differs from your account country, message me before purchasing.
Destination | Import duty | Import tax | Estimated total
United States | 0% | none collected at import | $0
Canada | 0% | 5% GST, or 13–15% HST by province | $15 – $44
United Kingdom | 0% | 5% reduced-rate import VAT on works of art | about $15
European Union | 0% | 5.5% – 13.5% reduced rate, set by your country | $16 – $39
Australia | none on orders under AUD 1,000 | 10% GST, charged at checkout | about $29, paid at checkout
Where tax is collected at delivery, DHL adds a small advancement fee, typically $12 to $20.
Questions
You will always reach a real person, never AI.
God bless,
Ricardo Ivan Cardenas EMBA
St. Joseph’s University New York Business School Graduate
item specificsHandmade: Yes
Provenance: Ownership History Not Available
Country of Origin: Mexico
California Prop 65 Warning: N/A
Culture: Mexican
Date of Creation: 1953
Dimensions: 11" W x 9.5" H (28 x 24 cm)
Type: Ex Voto Retablo
Subject: Divino Rostro and Santo Niño de Atocha, healed after surgery for a tumor in the head
Region of Origin: Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico
Material: Hand-Painted Oil on Tin
Framing: Unframed
Petitioner: Matilde Morales Flores
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