Elsa Arroyo

• Doctor of Philosophy
• PhD researcher at National Autonomous University of Mexico

This book is focused on the evaluation of the damages produced in the ensemble of 16th-Century Monasteries located the Slopes of Popocatepetl after the earthquake of September 19,2017. It provides guidelines to develop strategies focused on the recovery and protection of collapsed mural painting in historic buildings. The document seeks to be a gui...

Este libro examina las estrategias de representación de las imágenes sobre la conquista de México y sus protagonistas, las cuales fueron creadas en el imaginario de la pintura novohispana a finales del siglo XVII. 1521 en el arte barroco examines the historical narratives on the Conquest of Mexico depicted in paintings form the end of seventeenth...

This chapter explores the role of Netherlandish pictorial language and its printed models in the production of the arts in the viceroyalty of New Spain, especially focused on the works of the Flemish painter Maerten de Vos that inaugurated the main altarpiece of the Cathedral of Mexico in 1584 under the patronage of the archbishop Pedro Moya de Con...

This paper reports the results of a project carried out by an interdisciplinary group of researchers and students at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) for the documentation, research and recovery process of mural paintings of the ensamble of 14 monasteries at the slopes of Popocatépetl volcano in Central Mexico, listed as World Heritag...

The famous Maya blue, a nanostructured hybrid organic-inorganic material, has been the subject of numerous studies since its discovery in 1931. These mainly focused on mural paintings, manuscripts, cultural artifacts from ancient Mesoamerica, and notable examples of syncretic art produced in early colonial times in New Spain as a result of the conv...

This paper presents a combination of noninvasive techniques for the study of superimposed painting stages in The Pentecost, a Mexican Colonial panel painting attributed to Baltasar de Echave Orio (1558 – 1619). The application of reflected hyperspectral imaging (HSI) analysis for mapping the distribution of the pigments in the paint surface and the...

Este artículo presenta el estudio histórico y técnico de la pintura mural del ex convento de San Juan Bautista Tlayacapan (estado de Morelos, México), con el propósito de reconstruir los cambios y alteraciones que han sufrido los programas pictóricos a lo largo del tiempo. Se ha puesto énfasis en los recientes daños provocados por el sismo del 19 d...

This text presents a historical and technical study of the mural painting of the former convent of San Juan Bautista Tlayacapan (state of Morelos, Mexico). Its purpose is to reconstruct the changes and alterations that the pictorial programs have experienced over time, focusing on the recent damage caused by the earthquake of September 19th, 2017,...

Colonial panel paintings constitute an essential part of Latin-American cultural heritage. Their study is vital for understanding the manufacturing process, including its evolution in history, as well as its authorship, dating and other information significant to art history and conservation purposes. Raman spectroscopy supplies a non-destructive c...

This ESSAY reflects upon material studies on viceregal art carried out by the Laboratorio de Diagnóstico de Obras de Arte (Laboratory of Artwork Diagnostics, LDOA), Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas (Institute of Aesthetic Research, IIES), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (National Autonomous University of Mexico, UNAM) during the last...

The Flemish painter Simón Pereyns travelled to New Spain in 1566 as a member of the viceroyal court. In two important paintings La Virgen del Perdón (1568) and San Cristóbal (1588) we identified wide use of blue smalt pigment, a potassium glass with cobalt oxide. The color of this material depends on its manufacture process, from pale greyish blue...

Since the J.R.J. Van Asperen de Boer thesis (1968), infrared reflectography (IRR) has become a classic image registration method for paintings studies. This technique reveals the presence of preparatory drawings, testimonies of painter's skills and the organization of his workshop. It also provides information useful to decriminalize several pigmen...

Although the use of cellulose nitrate paint by David A. Siqueiros (1896-1974) is well documented, when and how he used it is not well established. This article focuses on a technical examination of six paintings Siqueiros made between 1931 and 1949. The paintings analyzed come from two collections: Museo Nacional de Arte in Mexico City and The Muse...

La reflectografía infrarroja (IRR) se ha vuelto un método de registro de imagen clásico para el estudio de obras pictóricas. Esa técnica revela la presencia de dibujos preparatorios. Aunque poco explorado, este registro contiene también información que ayuda a la identificación de los pigmentos presentes en la superficie de la obra. Ese trabajo pro...

La reflectografía infrarroja (IRR) se ha vuelto un método de registro de imagen clásico para el estudio de obras pictóricas. Esa técnica revela la presencia de dibujos preparatorios. Aunque poco explorado, este registro contiene también información que ayuda a la identificación de los pigmentos presentes en la superficie de la obra. Ese trabajo pro...

This article analyzes the blue pigments used in eight mantles of the Virgin in paintings of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, focusing on the blues of the Novohispanic palette and their use in building up layers of oil paint. It also examines the peculiarities in the handling of materials by recognized masters and the systems they devised for...

This paper discuss the presence of powdered glass and quartz integrated in the red lake layers of two paintings attributed to the Sevillian painter Bartolome Esteban Murillo that belongs to the Guadalajara’s Regional Museum’s art collection. A laboratory experimental reproduction of the Sevillian painting technique was made using three different la...

Little is known about manuscript writing and painting practices in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica. Around the world, only 16 codices from pre-Hispanic Mexico survived the Spanish conquest, most of them preserved in European collections. Even though the manufacture of codices was widespread during the post-Classical period (1325–1521 AD), the features of...

Resumen: Se ha estudiado el efecto del fuego sobre la Virgen del Perdón de Simón Pereyns, pintura sobre tabla del siglo XVI que se incendió en 1967 en la Catedral de México. La interpretación fisicoquímica de las alteraciones producidas por el incremento en la temperatura procede de un experimento de reproducción de los estratos pictóricos desde el...

The study discusses the multiple meanings and responses that the beholder has assigned to the painting Virgen del Perdón through out cultural conditions along history. The Flemish Simon Pereyns painted this panel in 1568 for the first Cathedral of Mexico. During the fire of 1967, over 70 % of the panel painting was carbonized, and even though it su...

The De la Cruz-Badiano Codex is a herbal medicine treatise, written in the year 1552 in the School for Indians of Santiago Tlatelolco, in the early Colonial period. The conception of the book combines both the European and Mexica cosmovision: it contains the descriptions and diagnosis of different illnesses, with the cures, recipes based in the use...

Most of the examples of XVI century panel paintings preserved in Mexico, are located in Retablos (altar pieces) of Dominican and Franciscan convents situated in rural areas. The study of these paintings implies the impossibility to remove the paintings from their original support. In situ analysis is required, non-destructive studies are preferred...

En este artículo se aborda el análisis histórico, artístico, técnico y material de una pintura novohispana que ahora se da a conocer desde una perspectiva interdisciplinaria: La Sagrada Familia con san Juan niño, que ostenta semejanzas con la plástica de la Nueva España del último tercio del siglo XVI; en particular, la obra se compara con otras at...

This article offers a historical, artistic, technical and material analysis of a Novohispanic painting that is studied here from an interdisciplinary perspective: La Sagrada Familia con san Juan niño ("The Holy Family with St. John as a Child"), which presents similarities to the plastic art of New Spain in the last third of the sixteenth century;...

The Grolier Codex has been a controversial document ever since its late discovery in 1965. Because of its rare iconographical content and its unknown origin, specialists are not keen to assure its authenticity that would set it amongst the other tree known Maya codes in the world (Dresden, Paris Codex and Madrid Codex). The document that has been k...