A Guatemalan Cabinet for LACMA
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| Unknown, Cabinet (Contador), Guatemala, 18th century. LACMA, purchased with the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund |
LACMA has acquired an ornate 18th-century cabinet made in Guatemala for export. Consisting of a table base and two stacked cabinets, it is made of wood, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, brass, copper, and iron. It stands nearly 7 ft. tall. Such cabinets were known as "towers of riches" and used to display the owner's wealth.
Only a few cabinets of this type and scale survive. Many have been found in Mexico or Peru. It was once theorized that the exotic materials were imported from the Far East. Scholars now believe the cabinets were made in Guatemala with locally sourced tortoiseshell and mother-of-pearl. The cabinet's design as well as the inlay techniques show awareness of European models.
Like most of the Spanish Colonial works that LACMA has added in recent years, the Cabinet was purchased with deaccession funds from the Bernard and Edith Lewin collection. It supplies context for a much smaller cabinet on stand purchased in 2009 and a large cabinet that Long Beach collector Ronald A. Belkin donated in 2013. The Belkin cabinet is the middle piece of what would have been a three-piece ensemble.
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| Unknown, Cabinet with Image of Saint John the Baptist, Guatemala, 18th century. LACMA, gift of Ronald A. Belkin |
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| Cabinet with Matching Stand, Guatemala, 18th century. LACMA, purchased with the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund |
Comments
Govan and his crew haven't minded modern and contemporary art in the museum's permanent collection being on continuous display since the era of Covid, but most of its older works have remained stowed away who-knows-where.
In the Resnick, a large area for months has contained nothing but chandelier-type objects of a contemporary artist. Uh, that's the best you can do, LACMA?
Huge museums with square footage galore can be extravagant in what is or isn't on display and how space is used, but LACMA - particularly since 2020 - is anything but that.