The two carved Pilasters on display in the same room, does the museum maintain them?
If you are speaking about the Zuni Carved Pilasters from Our Lady of Guadalupe, yes, we have a wonderful conservation team at the museum that monitors those pieces to make sure the wood is kept at just the right temperature and humidity so that they do not crack or warp.
Yes - thank you. Is anything applied to pieces to preserve them?
Another good question! I don't have any notes in our files about preservatives (although that was a common practice in early museum collecting that has now stopped because conservators now know the damage it can do after many years--applying chemicals a bug deterent for example).
We have evidence, however, that they were originally gessoed and polychromed. I find those pieces fascinating for the way that they incorporate Indigenous imagery/forms with the catholic iconography.
Tell me more.
These are "estípite columns", which are widest in the middle of the shaft and narrower at the base and capital. This style became popular in southern Spain around 1700.
The ruined church of Our Lady of Guadalupe was a landmark in Zuni culture. One of the museum's early curators, Stewart Culin, first heard about them in 1902, and in 1904 succeeded in purchasing all four pilasters when he discovered they were no longer in use inside the church.
The Zuni Pueblo is located in the New Mexico and dates back thousands of year.