Religious Art

A saint on a linden panel, a Madonna on a sheet of tin. Religious art here includes Russian Orthodox icons, Mexican retablos, Tibetan and Nepalese thangkas and Indian pichvai, mostly from the 18th and 19th centuries. Russian icons show John the Baptist, the Madonna and Child and the Theotokos of the Burning Bush, some with silver and brass covers. Mexican retablos were painted on tin for home altars, with Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Holy Trinity among the subjects. Pichvai from Nathdwara in Rajasthan were painted on cotton to hang behind the image of Krishna in temple shrines.

Tibetan thangkas include a framed Mahakala, the wrathful protector, and Nepal sends 20th century work on canvas. A retablo can hang alone in a narrow niche or in a group above a desk, and a pichvai fills a wall the way a tapestry would. These were made for devotion first, and they still deserve a quiet spot.