Oaxaca. the Tlacochahuaya altarpieces 2.

For our second post on the Tlacochahuaya retablos we look at a pair of smaller altarpieces that flank the apse beside the sanctuary arch, framed in a similar Oaxacan style with intricate, foliated spiral columns. 

The Calvary altar on the left features a delicate portrait of St. Catherine and Christ with the cross, together with chiaroscuro portraits of other Dominican saints. 

Newly restored, the retablo of the Virgin of the Rosary on the right holds a huge canvas showing her ringed by a rosary flanked by St Dominic and again Catherine of Siena. Her robe is spangled with gold roses and she wears a gilded crown in the Andean manner.

   In the central niche stands a winsome statue of the Virgin with the Christ Child; the archway is framed with miniature medallions of the Mysteries of the Rosary. 

text © 2007 & 2020 Richard D. Perry

images by the author and courtesy of Felipe Falcón