COLLECTION NAME:
Santo Collection
Record
Creator display:
López, George T. (American woodcarver and santero, 1900-1993)
Creator role:
creator
Creator note:
Great-nephew of George Lopez
Date display:
1977
Title:
Carreta de la Muerte
Title:
Death Cart
Title:
El Angel de la Muerte
Title:
The Angel of Death
Description:
A skeletal figure sits in a wooden, two-wheeled, long-handled cart. The figure holds a bow and arrow; a hammer, axe, and sword are also in the cart. The sword is labeled "SPADA DE / LA MUERTE"
Note Fr. Steele:
"signed by George Lopez of Cordova (whose grandfather made the first death cart); actually made by Alex Ortiz, GL's grand-nephew [adopted grandson] info of Chuck Briggs, 16 nov 84)."
Inscription:
Signed: George Lopez
Location name:
Cordova
Location name:
New Mexico
Materials display:
Carved cottonwood (plant material), willow (?), milled lumber for floor and seat
Material name:
string, nails
Material name:
cottonwood (wood)
Source name:
Thomas J. Steele, S.J.: The Regis University Collection of New Mexico and Colorado Santos.
Subject term:
Death (Personification)
Work type:
bultos
Work type:
sculpture (visual works)
Exhibition note:
Denver, CO: Denver Public Library, Sept - Oct 1988.
Acquisition note:
1977; "(met Phil, Mollie, Tony Freeman that day)"
Accession number:
RU0055
Measurements display:
63 x 103 x 38 cm
Santo Subject:
Doña Sebastiana, La Carreta, El Ángel de Muerte (The Death Cart)
Santo Subject Type:
Other Subjects
Note:
A reminder of death, not to be prayed to; used as a penitential instrument in Holy Week processions. All death carts date from after the middle of the nineteenth century. Arrows symbolize epidemic sickness (cf. Iliad I). Death may bear the name "Sebastiana" because St. Sebastian was martyred with arrows. An allegorical figure of death as a skeletal or corpselike woman with a bow and arrow or a club. Most often recognized as only a reminder, it was perhaps in some places superstitiously prayed to for longer life. Steele, "The Death Cart," Colorado Magazine 55 (1978), 1-14; Wroth, Images of Penance, Images of Mercy, pp. 149-59.
Rights text:
IN COPYRIGHT - EDUCATIONAL USE PERMITTED