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A narrative ex-voto painted in oil on tin in 1953 for Demetria Tovar Reyes of Tlaquepaque, Jalisco, giving thanks for a miracle granted to her whole family.
The flaming Sacred Heart sits at the right, crowned with a cross and ringed by its crown of thorns, set inside a heavy garland of pink and blue roses worked in thick impasto. A gold sun burns at the upper left, and below it Demetria and two others kneel with lit tapers. The inscription runs along the bottom in a painted cartouche. It measures 12 x 11 inches.
It comes from the same source as the rest of my retablos: one unknown painter who never signed his work and has since died. Families commissioned his pieces and took them to their village churches.
An elderly custodian at one of those churches has been collecting this painter\'s work for decades. A picker who travels the small village churches brought it to my dealer, and my dealer brought it to me.
None of those links is documented on paper, so I give it to you as the path it traveled, not as a chain of title.
The inscription
As painted:
\"Demetria Tovar Reyez: Milagro: Concevido Tlaquepaque. Jal. 1953 Milagro, Testimonio, de gratitud Toda La Fam. Agradecidos eternamente\"
In English:
\"Demetria Tovar Reyes. A miracle granted. Tlaquepaque, Jalisco, 1953. A miracle, a testimony of gratitude. The whole family, eternally grateful.\"
The spelling is the painter\'s own: Reyez for Reyes, Concevido for conceoffero, and no accents anywhere. Irregularities like these are part of what makes the piece genuine.
Condition
Good for its age. The paint is stable and the inscription is fully legible.
There is a nail hole at top center where the tin has torn open, a scatter of small losses and lifted paint across the mauve ground at the upper left and through the garland, and fine scratches over the surface. The heavy impasto on the roses and the flames is intact. The corners are lightly bent.
The verso is bare tin under heavy rust and scale.
Appraisal
Grade: B+
A dated, named, placed ex-voto with the thanks given for the whole family, and one of the most decorative compositions in this group: the Sacred Heart in a full rose garland, painted in thick raised impasto. What holds it back from an A is that the inscription records the miracle without saying what it was, so there is no story on the panel. Graded against realized sales of this painter\'s work.
Gallery replacement value: $525, what it would cost to replace this piece through a gallery, for insurance and estate purposes.
A note on the photographs
One photograph shows the retablo staged for scale. Only the retablo is included.
Shipping and import fees
The price includes DHL Express shipping anywhere in the world, with tracking, packed by Diseños de Cartón in Guadalajara.
Import duty and tax are the buyer\'s responsibility. Tariff code 9701.91, hand-painted original art. Most markets let it in duty-free, and it qualifies for a reduced tax rate wherever one exists.
When it arrives, open the box along the seams; never cut down into it.
If your delivery country differs from your account country, message me before purchasing.
Destination | Import duty | Import tax | Estimated total
United States | 0% | none collected at import | $0
Canada | 0% | 5% GST, or 13–15% HST by province | $14 – $42
United Kingdom | 0% | 5% reduced-rate import VAT on works of art | about $14
European Union | 0% | 5.5% – 13.5% reduced rate, set by your country | $15 – $37
Australia | none on orders under AUD 1,000 | 10% GST, charged at checkout | about $28, paid at checkout
Where tax is collected at delivery, DHL adds a small advancement fee, typically $12 to $20.
Questions
You will always reach a real person, never AI.
God bless,
Ricardo Ivan Cardenas EMBA
St. Joseph\'s University New York Business School Graduate
Item specifics
Type: Painting
Subject: Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, miracle granted to a family
Original/Reproduction: Original
Date of Creation: 1953
Region of Origin: Tlaquepaque, Jalisco, Mexico
Country/Region of Manufacture: Mexico
Material: Tin, Oil
Signed: No
Artist: Unsigned by the painter, petitioner named Demetria Tovar Reyes
Framing: Unframed
Style: Folk Art, Mexican, Religious
Features: One of a Kind, Dated 1953, Inscribed, Hand Painted
Color: Mauve, Red, Gold, Pink
Condition: Used
Tariff code: 9701.91
