Keeping tabs on Colonial Treasures

In recent weeks, Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) has made public its concern about the rise in organised gangs entering churches and nabbing everything from paintings and statuary to decorative robes and historical documents, reports Monica Campbell for the CSM.

There are about 17,000 churches in Mexico holding somewhere in the region of 4 million Mexican or Spanish Colonial religious objects. While a programme to document these important pieces began thirty years ago, only a tiny proportion – maybe 1.5 per cent – have been registered.

Artist and writer Richard Perry publishes the Exploring Colonial Mexico website. He tells me that INAH’s concern is well-founded; “looting of churches is definitely on the rise in Mexico.” Richard has produced a series of wonderful illustrated guidebooks that cover the most interesting regions of colonial Mexico. He says that “given the seemingly bottomless appetite and appreciating prices for ‘folk art’ among [North] American collectors and colonial religious images among Mexicans and Latin Americans, this trend can only worsen.

“While the monitoring of pre-Columbian [archaeological] sites has improved, the relative insecurity of most churches and their easily portable artefacts has made them more vulnerable. There are so many churches, and with inadequate local resources it is open season. Even if there is a local guardian, this lucrative traffic opens up new opportunities for corruption, especially in poor rural areas.”

Art antiques shops such as this one in San Francisco are now more commonplace [Editor's note: no suggestion of wrongdoing].

Filed in: Colonial Mexico