19th Century Cuzco School Oil on Canvas of Saint Martin of Tours

A good 19th Century Cuzco school example of an oil on canvas, laid on board, painting of St Martin of Tours. Housed in a painted and gilt frame the painting is in very good original condition.

The canvas is larger than its stretcher and several centimetres of the canvas is wrapped around the back of the stretcher (see photos). A section at the base of the picture is subsequently hidden from view but bears the initials MB which may indicate the artist as Marcos Ribera – a renowned Cuzco School artist, born in Cuzco, Peru, in 1830. This is easily exposed by removing the back panel

Saint Martin is best known for the account of using his sword to cut his cloak in two, to give half to a beggar who is clad only in rags in the depth of winter.

His shrine in Tours became a famous stopping-point for pilgrims on the road to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

The Cuzco school was formed by a group of European and indigenous painters active in Cuzco, Peru, from the 16th through the 18th century and beyond.

The term refers not to an easily identifiable style from a single period of history but instead to the artists of multiple ethnicities who worked in various styles throughout the history of the Viceroyalty of Peru in and around Cuzco.

Situated high in the Andes, Cuzco had been the capital of the Inca empire and had become the headquarters for each of the religious orders in the viceroyalty.

European artists began working in Cuzco shortly after Spanish colonization of the city in the 1530s. They introduced the styles they had learned in their native countries to indigenous artists who had traditionally painted ceramics and murals in a geometrically abstract style.