Mexican Retablo Depicting Saint Joseph with Christ Child, Framed

A woman with a child stands beside a red cloth in a deep carved frame

This Retablo depicting saint joseph with christ child is from Mexico, and dates to the 19th century. It is paint & tin. Retablos were first painted on wood, canvas and copper for churches, but cheap tin sheets in the nineteenth century made paintings of saints affordable across every class of society. A small painting of a robed woman holding a red-clad child in a room with a red draped table at the right. The palette is muted blue and gray. A thick black frame with scrolling ridges surrounds the mat. It is 22 inches wide and 26 high.

Plenty of drama in the frame, plenty of quiet in the picture.