IVORY RELIGIOUS ART

Hypotheses on ivory production workshops in northern Minas Gerais

Abstract

This study presents partial results from The Afro-Luso-Oriental Ivory Collection project in Brazil: an introductory research in the collections of Minas Gerais, funded by FAPEMIG. The questions that guide the investigation rest on questions that start from the chronological and geographical outline of the works raised: what is the origin of the objects? What is the aesthetic configuration manifest? Is it possible to identify the use of ivory as a raw material in local workshops? The presence of imaginary and ivory objects in the territory was recurrent between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as a product representative of the commercial expansion that spanned the entire Portuguese Empire. The dynamics of indoctrination of the colonized peoples are based on the processes of exchange of materials and techniques, as well as the symbolic resignification of elements from different cultures. After survey and study crucifixes collected from the north to the south of the state, this research assumes as hypothesis the local confection of this typology of objects.