Portable Shrine (Retablo)

In Peru, the making of these retablos was largely concentrated in the highland region of Ayacucho, where they were sold to local Quechua people. The interior of the boxes were brightly painted with floral motifs and the devotional images were sculpted in a potato paste/gypsum clay which was allowed to harden and then painted. By the 1950s, the portable shrines were being collected by outside artists and art dealers, and the makers were encouraged to move away from portraying individual saints to showing nativity scenes and views of Quechua rural and village life. This new type of retablo soon became popular on a broader commercial market and over the past thirty years a number of artists have specialized in their production. This is an example of one of the early retablos made for the outside market. Rather than portraying a devotional image of a saint, the artist has created a nativity scene on the bottom level and another on the top showing the adult Christ amongst his flock of sheep, symbolizing his followers.