Viceregal Peru
During the viceregal era, Callao, as the first port of the Viceroyalty of Peru, was responsible for controlling the maritime routes in the Pacific, and for this the Navy of the South Sea was created in 1570.
The European powers sent expeditions and corsairs to snatch from Spain the riches that were transported on ships and galleons to the Metropolis.
A larger expedition was the one that reached the coast of Peru in 1624, when the Dutch Admiral Jacques Clerk, also known as L ́ Hermite, in command of a fleet of eleven ships, blocked and attacked Callao, based on San Lorenzo Island, during a three-month siege.
Tiempo y poder
The document is an intaglio from the 17th century, which shows the siege of the Port of Callao in May 1624 by the Nassau Fleet commanded by Jacques L’Hermite.
Work of Arnoldus Montanus in 1671, copper plate. 286 x 343mm
The engraving lost its value of representation from the moment that the print on paper deteriorated eaten by moths.
Paper has been used as an instrument of exchange and value, these values have not always been properly supported, so they are susceptible to speculation, thus creating paper profits that can be ephemeral and leveraged.
By intervening the document with gold leaf, covering the holes produced by the moth, I am giving it a new value, giving it a special aura, that same aura that the potatoes covered in gold leaf reflect as if they were the object of desire, but They burst forth with the force of germination, granting them a value of production and sustenance.
The ruler represents the units of measure that allow matters to be calculated. I am referring to the measures of central tendency, tools used to measure statistics whose objective is to summarize a set of values in a single value; quantitative expressions of data that have been obtained from a population, for calculations and analysis of variability.
Engraving pitted by moths and filled with sheets of gold leaf
286 x 343 mm
Original document 1671
Work of Arnoldus Montanus 1671, copper plate on paper
286 x 343 mm
