Description

This retablo, showing a portrayal of Noah's Ark (complete with Noah, the animals, and the ship), is by internationally renowned Peruvian artist Claudio Jimenez Quispé. In Peru, retablos are portable boxes which depict religious, historical, or everyday events that are important to the Indigenous people of the highlands, with Ayacucho being the center of retablo production. The three dimensional scenes inside the boxes are usually crafted with a potato-gypsum-clay paste mix and painted with detailed strokes of tempera. Claudio comes from a famous family of retablo makers in Ayacucho, but now works in Lima. His complex and beautiful retablos have been shown around the world, including at Santa Fe's International Folk Art Market.  Other members of his family, such as siblings Nicario, Edilberto, Eleudora and Mabilon, and nephew and niece Luis and Julia Huamani Rodriguez are also skilled retablistas.