(pleasant jazz music)
- [Steven] We're in the Franz
Mayer Museum in Mexico City
and we're looking at this
large sculpture in ivory
of the crucifixion of Christ
and it's a fabulous example
of the complex trade routes
that existed in the late
16th and early 17th century,
when we think this was made.
- [Lauren] This object in ivory
would have been produced in likely Manila,
in the Philippines.
The ivory would have been
imported from somewhere else
because it was not local,
so maybe from India
or maybe even beyond that
and then the ivory
workers in the Philippines
were actually being trained
initially by Chinese artists
who were familiar with
working in this technique,
and they were producing these objects
for export across the Pacific.
- [Steven] It took tremendous effort
to get ships across that ocean.
But there were regular voyages
between Acapulco on the Pacific Coast,
near Mexico City and the Philippines,
both lands controlled by the Spanish.
- [Lauren] And so an object like this
would have made its way via
the Manila Galleon trade,
getting into Acapulco,
then would have been carried
over land to Mexico City
where it either would have been purchased
or made its way further over
land to the Port of Veracruz
and then made its way across
the Atlantic, back to Europe.
- [Steven] Mexico was in the center
of this complex web of trade
between East Asia and Europe,
with Mexico right in the middle,
and it would have been very
precious objects like this
that would have been important enough
to go on those kinds of
long distance journeys.
Now Mexico City, in turn,
would have been trading with East Asia
with the precious metals, for instance,
that it was extracting.
So gold and silver
would have been making their way East
in exchange for objects of
ivory and silk and ceramics.
- [Lauren] So an object like this
would have likely been in a private chapel
for someone who is very elite.
This is not the type of object
that was probably gonna be on display
in a major altar piece,
in say, the cathedral.
- [Steven] Well it's too small
but for a piece of ivory, it's enormous
and if you look at it carefully,
you can see that the main pieces
that make up this crucifixion
mimic the natural curve
of an elephant's tusk,
and so you can understand
how this was constructed.
Each of the arms are carved
from individual tusks
and it's possible that the
body is actually put together,
although it's difficult to see where
from our vantage point.
Nevertheless, the
original turn of the tusk
is still evident
and adds emotional power to this figure
as it animates the body of Christ.
- [Lauren] This object
is a perfect example
of the cosmopolitan nature
of Mexico or New Spain.
- [Steven] It's so interesting for me
to think about such a
powerfully religious subject,
the result of Chinese knowledge
in the hands of Philippine artisans,
traded in Mexico.
It speaks to the vast
global networks of trade
in the early modern period,
as well as the new reach of Catholicism.
(pleasant jazz music)
