Religion

Page from the Koran

One hallmark of the American experience captured in the Museum's collections is the nation's broad diversity of religious faiths. Artifacts range from Thomas Jefferson's Bible to a huge "Sunstone" sculpture carved for a Mormon temple in Illinois in 1844 to a household shrine from the home of a Pueblo Indian in the 1990s. Furniture, musical instruments, clothing, cooking ware, and thousands of prints and figures in the collections have all played roles in the religious lives of Americans. The most comprehensive collections include artifacts from Jewish and Christian European Americans, Catholic Latinos, Protestant Arab Americans, Buddhist and Christian Asian Pacific Americans, and Protestant African Americans. One notable group is the Vidal Collection of carved figures known as santos and other folk religious material from the practice of Santeria in Puerto Rico.

Date: 1960s

Saint Michael and the Devil

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1965
maker
Lopez, George T.
Lopez, George T.
ID Number
CL.276185.1-6
accession number
276185
catalog number
276185.01-06
276185.01

Treasure Chest

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1961
ID Number
1997.0223.03
accession number
1997.0223
catalog number
1997.0223.03

Christmas tree

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1961-12
ID Number
2015.0074.0046
catalog number
2015.0074.0046
accession number
2015.0074

San Rafael

A bulto (three-dimentional sculpture) of San Rafael, the archangel, patron of travelers, source of spiritual and physical health, and protector against monsters. Often, attributes for San Rafael inculde pilgrim’s dress, a fish and a staff.
Description (Brief)
A bulto (three-dimentional sculpture) of San Rafael, the archangel, patron of travelers, source of spiritual and physical health, and protector against monsters. Often, attributes for San Rafael inculde pilgrim’s dress, a fish and a staff. This image of San Rafael holds two fish (peces o truchas) and a cross (cruz) made of cedar. The chip-carved decoration on the base, attributes, hair and clothing typifies the 20th c. Cendova Style, begun by the artist’s father, Jose Dolores Lopez in 1917. The clothing has very small, etched lines to add decoration and some dimension to the clothing. Overall, the sculpture is geometiric in design. The santo is signed in black ink and given an area of origin on the underside of the pine base. The santo is identifies, dated and given the area of origin in blue ink also, by the artist, on the underside of the pine base. The base is curved inward on all four sides. Referenced in Briggs, Charles L. The Woodcarvers of Cordova, New Mexico, 1980; Wrath, William, ed. , Hispanic Crafts of the Southwest, 1977. This bulto was presented by NMAH in 1983 by Dan Sheehy of the National Endowment of the Arts/Folk Art Program. In 1982, George Lopez participated in the Office of Folklife Program’s Annual Festival of American Folklife and was awarded a National Hertitage Fellowship by the NEA Folk Art Program. It was available for sale to local, national nd international patrons.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1951 - 1961
originator (author or composer, etc.)
Lopez, George T.
maker
Lopez, George T.
ID Number
1983.0774.01
accession number
1983.0774
catalog number
1983.0774.01

Hand Fan

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1960
maker
Shaw-Barton
American Art Works, Inc.
ID Number
CL.306787.56
accession number
306787
catalog number
306787.56

Hand Fan

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1960
ID Number
CL.306787.49
accession number
306787
catalog number
306787.49

Torah Finial

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1966
ID Number
1995.0343.02
accession number
1996.0343
catalog number
1996.0343.02

IT IS LATER THAN YOU THINK

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1969
ID Number
CL.306787.27B
accession number
306787
catalog number
306787.27B

Young boy crouched on ground

two black and white photographs mounted on black, perforated construction paper; recto- three elderly women standing side by side in profile but with faces turned and looking towards photographer, woman on left is wearing a black hat and a black and white coat with a belt tied ar
Description (Brief)
two black and white photographs mounted on black, perforated construction paper; recto- three elderly women standing side by side in profile but with faces turned and looking towards photographer, woman on left is wearing a black hat and a black and white coat with a belt tied around waist, woman in middle is wearing a dark coat and has a white kerchief with spotted pattern wrapped around hair and tied under chin, woman on right is wearing a light colored jacket, dark kerchief around her head and tied under her chin and is pointing towards photographer with her left hand; verso- young African American boy is peering over the top of a drinking water fountain with the spray on, right hand is gripping edge of bowl
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1968-1969
maker
Zalesky, Roy Joseph
ID Number
2017.0306.0151
accession number
2017.0306
catalog number
2017.0306.0151

Treasure Chest

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1960
ID Number
1997.0223.02
accession number
1997.0223
catalog number
1997.0223.02

Treasure Chest

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1960
ID Number
1997.0223.01
accession number
1997.0223
catalog number
1997.0223.01

Altar Screen Finial

This European Baroque-style polychromed ornamental fragment with floral, scroll and tassle motifs carved out of locally grown cedar was originally part of the altar of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Zuni (part of present-day New Mexico).
Description
This European Baroque-style polychromed ornamental fragment with floral, scroll and tassle motifs carved out of locally grown cedar was originally part of the altar of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Zuni (part of present-day New Mexico). It was part of the renovated decoration installed in the mission church c. 1778-1779, and one of several fragments collected for the U.S. National Museum's Bureau of Ethnology by James Stevenson and Frank Hamilton Cushing without permission from the community they were studying. On November 21, 1879, in a report addressed to J. C. Pilling, Chief Clerk of the Bureau, Stevenson reported: "I secured from the Old Church of Zuni two large images 4 ft. high…and the center piece of the altar…Got them in the dead of night." In the annual report of the Bureau published in 1896, Cushing reported: "A few years since, a party of Americans who accompanied me to Zuni desecrated the beautiful antique shrine of the church, carrying away 'Our Lady of Guadalupe of the Sacred Heart,' the guardian angels, and some of the bas-reliefs attached to the frame of the altar. When this was discovered by the Indians, consternation seized the whole tribe; council after council was held, at which I was alternately berated (because people who had come there with me had thus 'plundered their fathers' house'), and entreated to plead with 'Washintons' to have these 'precious saints and sacred masks of their fathers' returned to them."
Date made
1775-1799
associated dates
1966 10 27 / 1966 10 27
1881 01 06 / 1881 01 06, 1965 00 00 / 1965 00 00
originator
Our Lady of Guadalupe Church
user
Our Lady of Guadalupe Church
ID Number
CL.041914
accession number
9899
catalog number
41914

altar cloth

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1700-1820
associated dates
1897 03 13 / 1897 03 13, 1965 00 00 / 1965 00 00
1966 10 27 / 1966 10 27
ID Number
CL.176398
accession number
31785
catalog number
176398

Monks traversing Abbey corridor

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1944-1961
maker
Ruohomaa, Kosti
ID Number
PG.007386
catalog number
7386
accession number
252971

Young Girl Plays in Cemetery

date made
1969
maker
Erwitt, Elliott
ID Number
PG.72.13.50
catalog number
72.13.50
accession number
2001.0310

PREPARE TO MEET GOD

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1967
maker
Mayes, Harrison
ID Number
CL.306787.63A
accession number
306787
catalog number
306787.63A

Crusade Hymns

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1968
associated date
1968
maker
Broadman Press
ID Number
CL.306787.83
catalog number
306787.83
accession number
306787

First Assembly of God

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1969
maker
Plowden, David
ID Number
1986.0711.0708
accession number
1986.0711
catalog number
1986.0711.0708

Camera-ready comic strip, entitled "Brother Juniper".

"Brother Juniper," created by Fred McCarthy, is based on a monk of the same name. The comic is centered on Christian principles, adding humor through the somewhat naive Juniper.
Description
"Brother Juniper," created by Fred McCarthy, is based on a monk of the same name. The comic is centered on Christian principles, adding humor through the somewhat naive Juniper. In this strip, Juniper is caught fishing by the Game Warden, but argues that all he has caught is a shoe, dangling from the end of his fishing line.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
08/29/1966
publisher
Publishers Newspapers Syndicate, Inc.
ID Number
GA.22640
catalog number
22640
accession number
277502

Hand Fan

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1960
ID Number
CL.306787.58
accession number
306787
catalog number
306787.58

bell

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1800
associated dates
1966 10 27 / 1966 10 27
ID Number
CL.294110.01
accession number
294110
catalog number
294110.01

IT IS LATER THAN YOU THINK

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1969
associated date
1969
ID Number
CL.306787.27A
accession number
306787
catalog number
306787.27A

IT IS LATER THAN YOU THINK

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1969
ID Number
CL.306787.27C
accession number
306787
catalog number
306787.27C

LORD SEND A REVIVAL

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1969
ID Number
CL.306787.06
accession number
306787
catalog number
306787.06

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