Of the many striking paintings  that make up the new Smithsonian exhibition “Retratos: 2,000 Years of Latin American Portraits,” the “monjas coronadas,” or crowned nuns, stand out for their elaborate detail, beauty and depiction of piety.

Crowned nun portraiture was unique to Mexico during the 18th and 19th centuries and was meant to mark a nun’s spiritual marriage to Christ. “Families would commission artists to paint portraits of daughters who were soon to enter convents,” explains exhibition co-curator Miguel Bretos, a senior scholar at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. “Convents were an important part of the religious and social life of colonial Latin America.”

“Retratos” is an exhibition of 115 paintings and sculptures drawn from the holdings of museums in Latin America, Spain and the United States, as well as from private collections. It has 76 lenders from 15 countries and took four curators from three museums two years to organize. Its stunning portraits of Latin American rulers, priests, military figures and everyday people will be on view at the Smithsonian’s International Gallery in Washington, D.C., from Oct. 21 to Jan. 8, 2006.

On the “Retratos” curatorial team are Bretos; Carolyn Kinder Carr, deputy director and chief curator at the National Portrait Gallery; Marion Oettinger Jr., director of the San Antonio Museum of Art; and Fatima Bercht, chief curator, El Museo del Barrio, in New York City.  The Smithsonian is the fourth stop on the exhibition’s five-city tour, which includes venues in New York, San Diego, Miami and San Antonio.

“We all came to this project with slightly different perspectives,” Carr says of the team. “Marion is an anthropologist; Miguel, a historian; and Fatima’s focus is on contemporary Latin American artists.” Carr is a respected art historian who has organized numerous exhibitions, mainly of modern and contemporary art and photography.

Because there is little published on Latin American portraiture, the team undertook three research trips, visiting churches, museums and private collections in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Mexico.  Team members also traveled individually to other countries, including Colombia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Puerto Rico, to view portraits and follow up on different aspects of the project.

During what Carr describes as three “marathon sessions,” the curators reviewed more than 1,000 images and, “with much difficulty,” whittled down their selections to a manageable size. Among their favorites were a small number of crowned-nun portraits.

Palm branches and crowns
Crowned-nun portraiture embodies “the celebration surrounding a young woman’s religious profession in a devoutly Catholic culture,” writes Kirsten Hammer, director of Latin American art at Sotheby’s. Hammer is author of an essay in the catalog that accompanies “Retratros.”

Crowned-nun portraits depict a female figure accompanied by objects used in the Catholic profession ceremony, including candles, palm branches and crowns, all of which may appear interwoven with flowers and fruit, Hammer explains.

“Other objects commonly shown in crowned-nun portraits, though not specific to the profession rites, are small statues or dolls [symbolizing the baby Jesus], crucifixes, crests and rosaries.  Each object carries special symbolic significance, sometimes pertaining only to the nun displaying it, sometimes employed as a standard icon expressing larger social or religious ideas,” Hammer writes.

The “Retratos” portrait of Sor María Francisca de San Calletano, for example, is filled with religious objects. Painted in 1840 by Félix Zárate, a respected painter from Jalisco, Mexico, in the first half of the 19th century, his subject is shown wearing the Dominican habit and a rosary. A disk with the Dominican emblem and a depiction of Saint Dominic of Guzman hangs from her habit.

“She carries a lighted candle, a symbol of fidelity, and an image of the Christ child,” Hammer writes.  “Her crown represents victory over sin and contains images of the Immaculate Conception; her patron saint, Saint Cajetan; and an unidentified figure.”

This oil-on-canvas crowned-nun portrait measures nearly 6½ feet tall and 4 feet wide and belongs to the San Antonio Museum of Art in Texas.

Identity of the sitter
The writing along the bottom of a portrait is called the “leyenda,” or legend, and provides clues to the identity of the sitter. “The legends are as varied as the liturgical objects chosen for the painting, but commonly list the nun’s religious name, her family name and the titles of her parents,” Hammer writes.

“Often they describe distinguished godparents or patrons. The city in which the nun was born, the convent that she entered and the date of her profession also are among the most common facts mentioned. Occasionally, if she was a distinguished student, her educational background is noted,” Hammer continues.

In the portrait of Sor María Francisca de San Calletano, for example, the legend reveals she is the “legitimate daughter of Don Leonicio Leal and Arquilina Bidrio” and “was born Jan. 1, 1820.... She was a novice of the convent of Saint Maria de Grasia... and professed the black veil in the same convent April 2, 1840, at 20 years of age.”

“Retratos: 2,000 Years of Latin American Portraits” forms the centerpiece of a major international project that includes educational materials, innovative outreach programs, a catalog, committees of Latino leaders working to support the project and a team of scholarly advisers. Additional information is available at the Web site www.retratos.org.