As Gladys has remarked, the "Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Project"
website at Dartmouth College has a lot of info, and lists
researchers whom you could contact about this nun/author.
Regarding question #1: the painted medallion is an escudo,
not a scapular. (Sister Juana is also wearing a scapular
-- escapulario in Spanish -- but that's the long, dark brown
apron-like cloth worn over her white habit.)
"Escudos de monjas" (i.e., nuns' shields, nuns' escutcheons or
nuns' badges) were apparently worn for special occasions by
Mexican nuns of various orders during the 1600's-1700's.
A sort of relicario, they were circular or oval framed
paintings on vellum or thin copper, and depicted saints.
(Note that a relicario in the New World sense isn't a
true reliquary, but rather a kind of wearable sacred art.)
The website www.collectorsguide.com/fa/fa032.shtml
indicates that Mexican apprentices to Hieronymite monks
made elaborate relicarios, so perhaps the Order of Saint
Jerome, to which she belonged, favored the wearing of
religious medallions, moreso than some of the ascetic
orders (like the severe Carmelites whom Sor Juana had
originally joined). Escudos de monjas do not seem to be
an emblem of high rank, although it probably took a bit
of family money or good social connections to commission
such artwork. Sor Juana certainly was famous and had wealthy
friends and patrons -- maybe she just had a nicer escudo than
the other sisters! BTW, her escudo depicts the Annunciation,
with the angel Gabriel appearing to St. Mary.
Question #2: The first portrait of Sister Juana was
*painted* in 1713 (18 years after her death) by
Juan de Miranda, according to the Chronology section
of the Dartmouth website -- www.dartmouth.edu/~sorjuana/ .
However, the printed edition of her _Segundo volumen
de las obras_ published in Seville in 1692 includes
an *engraved* portrait of her. (See the "Sor Juana's Arch"
website at Rutgers University for clues to an attribution
of the engraver, www.scils.rutgers.edu/~rsantil/juana28.html.)
Some scholars theorize that as a highly educated polymath,
Sor Juana might have studied painting herself, and at some
time produced a now-lost self-portrait, upon which all
subsequent portraits are based. See the Arizona State
University Hispanic Research Center's extensive website
http://mati.eas.asu.edu/ChicanArte/html_pages/unkn18.html
for a discussion of her portraits, or get a copy of
Noemi Atamoros Zeller's book _Nueva iconografía Sor Juana
Ines de la Cruz_ (most libraries have this author listed
under "Atamoros de Perez Martinez," not "Zeller").
Question #3: Sor Juana did teach girls at the convent.
Presumably a biography of her (e.g., the one by Octavio
Paz, avail. in English and Spanish) would specify what
she taught.
Question #4: Sor Juana is pictured on the 200 peso bill;
her Hieronymite convent is pictured on the verso.
Another good website about Sor Juana is
www.latin-american.cam.ac.uk/SorJuana/ ; it includes a
link to the University of Bielefeld's facsimile of her
1700 book _Fama y obras posthumas_. If you do a Google
*image* search for "sor juana" (in quotation marks),
you'll get lots of hits, English and Spanish.
--K.A. Bayruns
==Seattle, Washington
At 10:51 AM 5/11/04 -0700, you wrote:
>1) Art work of Sor Juana shows her wearing a large medallion-like object
>around her neck. Some people refer to this as an "escudo." It appears to
>be a large scapular. The object was a picture with a frame. The question
>is whether the escudo was worn by all nuns of this order, or was it an
>emblem given to higher echelon nuns?
>
>2) Who did the first painting of Sor Juana?
>
>3) Did she work with women outside of the convent and teach them simple
>accounting techniques?
>
>4) Finally, does her image appear on Mexican dollar bills?
>
>Thanks. Ms Socorro Maria Pelayo
>
>P.S. Any print or online bibliographic information on Sor Juana or any of
>these questions would be greatly appreciated.
__________________________________________________________________
Mail submissions to [log in to unmask]
For information about joining ARLIS/NA see:
http://www.arlisna.org//membership.html
Send administrative matters (file requests, subscription requests, etc)
to [log in to unmask]
ARLIS-L Archives and subscription maintenance:
http://lsv.uky.edu/archives/arlis-l.html
Questions may be addressed to list owner (Kerri Scannell) at: [log in to unmask]
|
