Colonial Dining Room
Creeping Beauty
Andean Fuchsia
Yucca Plants
Lantana Camara
Bromeliad and Firethorn
Duranta erecta "Golden Edge"
Colonial Courtyard Garden
Carved Wooden Choir Balcony with Caryatids
Devotional Niche with Saint Figure
Petaca
Manierist Ceilings and Symbolic Imagery at Casa del Fundador
Manierist Ceilings of the Casa del Fundador
In the coffered ceilings of the main hall appear animals, flowers, trees, cornucopias, and other symbols characteristic of Manierism. This artistic movement, situated between the Renaissance and the Baroque, arose in Italy and spread through Europe and the Americas in the late 16th and early 17th cc.
Manierist painters, influenced by Michelangelo, sought expressiveness and delighted in the unusual and artificial. They depicted mythological figures, symbolic animals, exotic plants, monstrous beings, and hybrid forms. In the Casa del Fundador, the style appears in tempera paintings on plaster, some based on printed illustrations then circulating in the Hispanic world. These paintings date to the period of Doña Menda de Figueroa’s second marriage to Don Juan Núñez de la Cerda. Hidden by a 19th-c. ceiling, they were uncovered and restored between 1964 and 1969.
In the coffered ceilings of the main hall appear animals, flowers, trees, cornucopias, and other symbols characteristic of Manierism. This artistic movement, situated between the Renaissance and the Baroque, arose in Italy and spread through Europe and the Americas in the late 16th and early 17th cc.
Manierist painters, influenced by Michelangelo, sought expressiveness and delighted in the unusual and artificial. They depicted mythological figures, symbolic animals, exotic plants, monstrous beings, and hybrid forms. In the Casa del Fundador, the style appears in tempera paintings on plaster, some based on printed illustrations then circulating in the Hispanic world. These paintings date to the period of Doña Menda de Figueroa’s second marriage to Don Juan Núñez de la Cerda. Hidden by a 19th-c. ceiling, they were uncovered and restored between 1964 and 1969.
Colonial Kitchen Hearth
Wattle-and-Daub Roof Structure
Interior Niche Window
Dining Room Furniture
Anthropomorphic Ceremonial Vessels
Athena and the Gryphon
Colonial Mural of Elephant Hunt
Allegorical Fresco with Elephants and Climber
Diana the Huntress with Stag
Monkeys in the Tree
Fantastical Rhinoceros
Heraldic Mural with Cornucopias and Putti
Allegorical and Heraldic Ceiling Frescoes
Allegorical Scene with Crowned Figures and Neptune
Sedan Chair and Travel Chest
Armored Chest
Wild Man with Club
Allegorical Winged Figure
Spanish Bargueño Desk
Museo Casa del Escribano Don Juan de Vargas
Museo Casa del Escribano Don Juan de Vargas welcomes visitors into a historic residence where art and architecture blend in an intimate domestic setting. Its highlight is a series of richly decorated wooden ceilings, alive with painted animals, flowers, trees, cornucopias and fantastical figures that turn the rooms into a vivid narrative of symbols and imagination. Once the home of a colonial notable, the house preserves the atmosphere of a lived-in space, evoking both everyday life and refined taste from centuries past.
The museum is especially renowned for its Mannerist ceiling paintings, created in the late 16th and early 17th centuries under the influence of Italian art and the legacy of Michelangelo. Executed in tempera on plaster, they show mythological beings, exotic plants and strange hybrid creatures, echoing printed illustrations that circulated through the Spanish Americas. Long hidden behind a 19th-century false ceiling and rediscovered and restored in the 1960s, these works now offer a rare glimpse into the sophisticated visual culture of the colonial elite.
The museum is especially renowned for its Mannerist ceiling paintings, created in the late 16th and early 17th centuries under the influence of Italian art and the legacy of Michelangelo. Executed in tempera on plaster, they show mythological beings, exotic plants and strange hybrid creatures, echoing printed illustrations that circulated through the Spanish Americas. Long hidden behind a 19th-century false ceiling and rediscovered and restored in the 1960s, these works now offer a rare glimpse into the sophisticated visual culture of the colonial elite.
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