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1954 Mexican ex voto retablo with original photograph, Santo Niño de Atocha, Fresnillo, Zacatecas
Free worldwide shipping and I prepay all import duties and VAT. You pay nothing at delivery, anywhere. Tariff code 9701.91.
A mother\'s thank you, painted on tin on May 9, 1954, for a baby who lived. Half the panel is the painting: the Santo Niño de Atocha seated in his pilgrim\'s hat and feather, cape and scallop collar, a basket of pink roses in one hand and the staff in the other, gold worked over the rose robe, banked clouds to either side, feet crossed above a cushion. The other half is a photograph of the child himself, an original period print of a barefoot toddler sitting on a floor in a kitchen, mounted under a hand-painted red and gold border that the same painter laid down to match the retablo. That is what makes this one different from every other ex-voto I have listed. Usually you get the miracle and you imagine the person. Here the person is looking back at you. The painter is the same anonymous hand behind all the retablos I carry, and he gave himself away again in the lettering: he broke \"pedimos\" across two lines and wrote the o as an a, \"Pe-dimas,\" which is the tell I use to identify his work, and the small pink roses in the basket are his motif. These come to me by a path rather than a documented chain. An unknown painter worked in a rural Jalisco town, families came to him, he painted their ex-votos, and they carried them to their own church. A custodian there kept them for years. My dealer buys from that custodian and will not name him or the town, and I have not pressed. I can tell you the path. I cannot document the individual links, and anyone selling you a documented chain of title on an ex-voto is inventing it.
Inscription
Painted verbatim, with the spelling as the painter left it:
† Freznillo Zac: ñiño De atodha
Gracias Por cuidar a mi bebe
Juanito. lo Pico Un alacran: Pe
dimas Por su salud i no murio
Tu lo Salvaste Mayo 9 De 1954
Corrected Spanish:
Fresnillo, Zacatecas. Niño de Atocha: gracias por cuidar a mi bebé Juanito. Lo picó un alacrán, pero pedimos por su salud y no murió. Tú lo salvaste. Mayo 9 de 1954.
English:
Fresnillo, Zacatecas. Child of Atocha: thank you for watching over my baby Juanito. A scorpion stung him, but we prayed for his health and he did not die. You saved him. May 9, 1954.
On the spelling: the painter writes \"Freznillo\" for Fresnillo and \"atodha\" for Atocha, carries the tilde onto the n of \"ñiño,\" uses \"i\" where modern Spanish uses \"y,\" drops accents throughout, and splits \"pedimos\" across the line break as \"Pe / dimas.\" None of this is error in any meaningful sense. It is how a rural painter in 1954 Zacatecas wrote, and it is part of what tells you the object is what it says it is. Fresnillo matters here beyond geography: the shrine of the Santo Niño de Atocha stands at Plateros, a few kilometres outside the town. This family petitioned the Niño practically on his own doorstep.
Condition
Good, with honest age. No repaint, no overpainting, no restoration, no touch-ups. Paint on the painted half is stable with scattered small losses and flake points, and the gold highlights on the robe and clouds are intact. There is a loss at the top center edge through to bare metal, roughly fingernail size, where the two halves meet. The photograph has toned warm with age and carries surface abrasion, edge wear and small losses to the emulsion, with a diagonal scratch at the upper right; the child\'s face is unaffected and reads clearly. The tin is slightly bowed with a creased upper left corner. The reverse is heavily oxidized with rust bloom, old adhesive residue and a nail hole at top center, all consistent with decades hanging in a church. Do not clean either surface.
Measurements
12 inches wide by 9 inches high, horizontal format. Painted tin panel, unframed, with the photograph mounted directly to the panel.
A note on the photographs
Photographed in natural daylight against neutral granite. Full front, the reverse, close detail on the Niño, close detail on the child\'s photograph, and the inscription at readable size are all shown. Tin throws highlights that are difficult to avoid. Colors are true to the piece in hand.
Grade and appraisal
Assigned grade: A. A named town, an exact date, a named child, a complete and legible narrative, a top tier devotion documented within sight of its own shrine, a scorpion miracle, which is a real and uncommon subcategory in Zacatecan ex-votos, and an original period photograph of the person the miracle happened to, mounted by the painter\'s own hand. In eight months of handling this line I have not had another with the photograph. It is held below A plus only by the top edge loss and the wear to the photographic surface. It is priced at $285. Gallery replacement value, meaning what an equivalent photo-and-painting ex-voto would cost you through a folk art dealer in Santa Fe, San Miguel de Allende or Mexico City, and the figure that matters for insurance: $850.
Item specifics
Material: Tin, oil paint, original gelatin silver photograph
Date: May 9, 1954, painted on the piece
Place: Fresnillo, Zacatecas, Mexico, painted on the piece
Devotion: Santo Niño de Atocha
Petition: Infant saved after a scorpion sting
Named: Juanito, the child
Artist: Unsigned, single anonymous hand, rural Jalisco
Dimensions: 12 x 9 inches, horizontal
Condition: Good, unrestored, no repaint
Quantity: One of a kind
Tariff code: 9701.91
Shipping and duties
Free worldwide shipping with tracking, and I prepay all import duties, VAT and GST. You pay nothing at delivery, in any country. No customs invoice, no broker call, no surprise charge at the door. The parcel carries tariff code 9701.91 for hand painted original art under 100 years old, with Mexican origin declared on the commercial invoice.
If your delivery address at checkout differs from the address on your account, please contact me first, as the difference in shipping would need to be covered.
Packed professionally in Colonia Americana, Guadalajara, with the photograph surface protected separately. Please open the carton along the seams only, never with a blade through the top.
Questions
Please message me. You will reach me, a real person, not an automated system and not AI. I answer every message myself.
God bless,
Ricardo Ivan Cardenas EMBA
St. Joseph\'s University New York Business School Graduate
