Here we have a retablo of San Rafael Arcángel, worn enough that you can tell he's been on watching over travelers for a long time. Not sure how they responded given the look on that fish…more on that a minute. He's the archangel from the Book of Tobit, the one who shows up with a fish and a walking stick. He cures a man's blindness and gets a wedding sorted out along the way. That’s how he rolls because he’s the patron of travelers and the sick. This one looks like he's earned that title.
The old artwork is an oil on canvas laid down onto a wood panel. You see this technique a lot in Spanish colonial devotional painting. Rafael's in his usual traveling kit. The tunic, dark knee breeches with red garters, boots, a red sash across the chest. He’s gripping the staff in one raised hand with a little gourd tied on by a scrap of ribbon. Now let’s talk about the fish held against his side. The fish and its own strange little face is the reason this painting works. That face!
We're attributing this to the Spanish colonial devotional tradition from the 19th century. It probably descended from the Andean archangel-as-traveler convention tied to the Cuzco school. t's an educated guess based on iconography. The face and body are painted in a way which reads more village production than fine commission. Folk art at its finest.
The antique retablo painting comes out of the estate of a serious art collector in Chicago. The Retablo was likely created in the late 1800s.
The old retablos artowork measures 13 1/2” tall by 10” wide. There's a heavy network of surface craquelure throughout. There’s also a small area of paint loss down to the ground layer and an old stable repair to a split along one edge of the panel. A horizontal crease across the forehead appears in some of the pics given the angle of the light. The gilt frame may or may not have started life with this painting. It has lost a fair amount of its gold leaf gesso and bare wood showing through in spots. The bottom corner is detached (see pic). I’ll leave that up to your discretion. The wire hanger on back is sound. Please see all pics as they are part of the description.
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The fish in this old folk art piece had me at hello. He will pierce you until the end of time.
