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A rare and exceptionally beautiful early New Mexican painted wood retablo of "Nuestra Señora de San Juan de Los Lagos" (Our Lady of Saint John of the Lakes) by Jose Rafael Aragon, c. 1830’s-1840’s

Historic New Mexican painted wood retablos don’t get much more interesting or more wonderful than this marvelous piece. To begin with, it was beautifully hand-fashioned and lusciously hand-painted almost two centuries ago by one of the greatest and most accomplished of all the classic New Mexican “Santeros” or Saint-Makers, Jose Rafael Aragon (active 1820-1862), who is widely known in the modern era as Rafael Aragon to distinguish him from his brother and fellow New Mexican Santero, Jose Aragon (active 1820-1835). For its great artistic beauty and exalted quality of craftsmanship, Rafael Aragon’s devotional artwork--retablos, bultos, altar screens, etc.--is widely considered to be the pinnacle of the historic classic Santero’s art in Northern New Mexico.

Various pieces of Rafael Aragon’s devotional work, retablos, bultos and altar screens, can be found in a number of important Southwestern museums and in several historic New Mexico churches as seen below, but they are nearly impossible to find in the marketplace today especially pieces as beautiful, as large and in as good a condition as this exceptional retablo. To begin with, the imagery here is important and visually arresting. Our Lady of Saint John of

the Lakes is one of the most significant portrayals of The Blessed Virgin Mary in Catholic iconography and Aragon presents her here with the greatest sensitivity, skill and fine workmanship.

Rafael Aragon was known to have lived in Santa Fe in the 1820’s, he is mentioned in the 1823 census of Santa Fe as being a rancher, 27 years old and married to Maria Josefa Lucero, age 30. After the death of his wife in 1832, he moved with his family north some 35 or so miles as the crow flies to a new home in the small high mountain village of Quemado whose name was changed several decades later to Cordova as it is still known today. There Aragon carved and painted the main altar screen of the Church of San Antonio de Padua as seen below, and this piece became one of many projects that built his reputation throughout the Santa Cruz Valley. Aragon also did work in most of the churches in the area including Santa Cruz, El Valle, Truchas, Chimayó, Hernández, and Pojoaque. He also worked in the Taos area. This particular retablo dates to this mature, most stylistically developed and productive period of his life of around 1830’s-1840’s which makes it now between 175 and195 years of age, a very respectable old age indeed.

“Jose Rafael Aragon worked for some forty years as a productive santero, from approximately 1820-1862. His career spanned much of the truly creative period of santo-making, and with his death in 1862, the classic period of this art came to an end.”

- Quotation source and ©"New Kingdom of the Saints, Religious Art of New Mexico, 1780-1907"

by Larry Frank, Red Crane Books,  Santa Fe, 1992, pp. 200

The retablo’s Virgin Mary image is most beautifully and vividly rendered here in deeply saturated red, light reddish pink, turquoise and dark lapis blue, yellow and black colors, all painted with hand-ground tempera paints made from natural local mineral or vegetal pigments onto a previously gessoed hand-adzed and shaped local ponderosa pine wood board and traditionally varnished with piñon pine pitch resin. The Virgin Mary is portrayed in a standing position, hands clasped in prayer and she is wearing her customary “Cloak of the Virgin Blue” cloak, her head topped with an elaborate crown and surrounded by a halo. As with many of Rafael Aragon’s retablos she is beautifully and dramatically flanked by lush elaborate curtains or draperies, and, in this particular manifestation of The Virgin Mary there are customarily two large candelabras with lit candles, one on either side of her. These two candles represent Christ’s passion and his being surrounded by his followers, particularly the two Marys, Mary the Mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

As befits its entirely hand-fashioned nature, the retablo is slightly uneven in shape and not precisely rectangular, but it generally measures an impressively-sized 14 1/2" in height and 10 3/4" in width and the adzed pine wood board is around 3/4" in thickness. This is fairly large for a historic New Mexican retablo, an indication of its importance and intrinsic value. The exceptional state of preservation of this piece can be attributed in part to good stewardship,

it was clearly very well taken care of over the centuries and partly to good luck. The colors are remarkably fresh and vibrant, almost as if they were painted yesterday. A thorough examination of the retablo under Ultraviloet light reveals no restoration or overpainting in evidence anywhere on the piece which, in itself, is something of a minor miracle. (We should all look so good at half this age).

And now to one of the most interesting parts of the long, nearly two century story of this piece. As we mentioned, the piece is in generally excellent vintage condition particularly in light of its very considerable age, but as one can clearly see, there is a prominently repaired crack running the entire length of the board from top to bottom which, upon close examination has been very carefully and precisely repaired in the front with one piece of old animal sinew cordage and in the back with two hand-hammered, thin grey metal plates fastened with handmade nails. This is an entirely Native Period repair and it reveals the fact that this retablo was clearly so important and valuable a piece to the people who owned it then that they would go to such great lengths to do such an extremely elaborate and tedious home repair on it. Possibly, the retablo fell off a wall and cracked or possibly some unknown misfortune befell the family and someone threw the retablo out the window onto the woodpile in anger as was common practice in the 19th century small villages of northern New Mexico.

"Nuestra Señora de San Juan de Los Lagos" (Our Lady of Saint John of The Lakes)

“Our Lady of the Lakes” is a particular manifestation which refers to The Blessed Virgin Mary and her connection with the natural world and her role as a protector and spiritual guide for believers. She also signifies devotion and Mary’s power of intercession and spiritual aid and comfort in times of natural disasters related to water such as storms, floods or drowning.

If your saint didn’t perform properly for you and keep you and your family safe and healthy, you “punished” it

by lopping off an arm or a foot if the saint was a bulto or breaking it and tossing it in the woodpile if it was a retablo for a while after which you might have given the saint a second chance to perform its protective duties

more effectively. So this home repair may be much more than just simply an accidental damage fix, it could be the realization of a fascinating cultural imperative, a “Badge” of sorts for the piece to wear proudly and it should

be evaluated and valued as precisely such. The large wooden board itself is also somewhat warped as can be seen

in the photos, a natural process for a pine wood board drying out over two long centuries time. There is also, interestingly, an old, prominently placed period paper label inscribed with an elaborate old-fashioned India ink collection number “18” affixed to the back of the retablo. We do not know from what collection this came, but from the careful, artistic manner in which it is rendered it must have some significance. Further research is needed.

Serious, high-end Southwestern devotional art collectors, enthusiasts and Museums alike should all take

proper and careful notice here; this is a rare and significant find, the likes of which you might never see available again. It is without a doubt the finest example of a Rafael Aragon retablo that we have had in the past 35 years

of dedicated searching. Carpe Diem!

Price $7,950

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Note: For a thorough academic and artistic discussion of historic New Mexican retablos, the artists

who created them and the means and methods and inspiration used to make them as well as the criteria

used for identifying the work of these artists, refer to “New Kingdom of the Saints, Religious Art of

New Mexico,1780-1907" by Larry Frank, Red Crane Books, Santa Fe, NM, 1992.

The reverse of the retablo showing the beautful hand-adzing marks in the wooden board, the careful period Native repairs and the old paper and India ink collection number "18".

“Artists such as Pedro Antonio Fresquis, Antonio Molleno and Jose Rafael Aragon created a dynamic New Mexican style of considerable originality. Their santos no longer reflected a conscious emulation of Old-World styles, but were, instead, original interpretations of religious iconography, made within the context of the social, cultural and spiritual influences of New Mexico; they and their followers established a decidedly New Mexican style of santo that is unique to the Southwest.”

-Quotation source and © "New Kingdom of the Saints, Religious Art of New Mexico, 1780-1907" by Larry Frank, Red Crane Books,  Santa Fe, 1992, pp.13-14.