El alhajamiento de las imágenes marianas españolas: los joyeros de Guadalupe de Cáceres y el Pilar de Zaragoza

Abstract

The custom of offering jewels to representations of the sacred beings of Roman Catholicism, specially to statues of Mary, has resulted in the accumulation of truly artistic treasures in Spain's churches and shrines. The author examines the way these offerings begin, grow, wane, and die out by taking as instances those found at the shrines of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Cáceres) and Our Lady of the Pillar (Saragossa). Besides calling attention to a body of first rate material for the study of Spanish jewelry —material which comes from Spain's colonies as well as from the mainland—, the paper shows, like many others, how an anthropological approach can come up with insights that art historians can only ignore at their peril.