Ignacio Chacón (active in Cuzco, Peru, 1745 - 1775)

Ignacio Chacón (active in Cuzco, Peru, 1745 - 1775) "Nursing Madonna" Oil on canvas. Relined. 51 x 40,5 cm. Ignacio Chacon was one of the most important disciples of the master Marcos Zapata of the Cuzco school of the 18th century. A powerful generation of indigenous painters emerged in Cuzco in the mid-17th century, protected by Bishop Manuel de Mollinedo y Angulo, who came to Peru in 1671, took charge of the Diocese of Cuzco in 1673, and died in that city in 1699. He contributed his support to the progress of the later famed Cuzco School. He supported the growing activity of indigenous and mestizo painters, making this painting recognised as native, without being distanced from European influence, but produced by the natives. Bishop Mollinedo, a patron of the arts, is portrayed among a group of figures in a painting depicting the death of Saint Peter Nolasco, from a series on the life of the saint that he painted for the main cloister of La Merced in Cuzco, some dated 1763. In the Convent of Ocopa (1707) there are also pictures painted by Chacón representing the life of Saint Francis and in one of them we can read "...these 4 canvases were painted in the city of Cuzco in the year 1763 and were done with the usual skill of the brush of the master Ignacio Chacón...". In 1775, together with Cipriano Gutiérrez, he made a Corpus Christi Arch in which he was assisted by Pedro Nolasco Araujo, Andrés Rodríguez, Jacinto Zegarra and Inga Hermenegildo Xara. His 1765 work, The Madonna and Child with Bird, which is part of Engracia and Frank Barrow Freyer'sprivate collection of colonial Peruvian art in the Denver Art Museum, USA, was transported by the US Postal Service for the Christmas holidays in 2006. As comparative references we can name two canvases; the Holy Family from the convent of Santa Clara and the Virgin and Child in the Museo Historico Regional in Cuzco.