The Art of Professing in Bourbon Mexico: Crowned-Nun Portraits and Reform in the Convent

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments Without a number of friends, mentors, colleagues , and institutions, I could not have accomplished this project. First, the William J. Fulbright Commission and COMEXUS funded the research portion by awarding me a fellowship to conduct dissertation research in primary sources in Mexico. Later, an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship gave me the time and resources that I needed to further develop my ideas and writing as a postdoctoral fellow in Latin American art at Pomona College. Further support from the Mellon Foundation, through the University of Texas Press’s Latin American and Caribbean Arts and Culture publication initiative, as well as the College Art Association’s Millard Meiss Publication Fund, helped with expenses incurred in publishing this book. In Mexico City, the staff and faculty of the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) kindly gave me access to their rich visual and scholarly resources. In particular, I am indebted to Clara Bargellini, who encouraged my research ideas and objectives. Her questions and suggestions early in the process helped me to discern what paths of investigation would provide the greatest yields. I also extend my thanks to the staffs of the Instituto’s library (the Biblioteca Justino Fernández) and visual resources center (the Archivo Fotográfico Manuel Toussaint). Similarly, my thanks to the very capable staffs of the Biblioteca Samuel Ramos (UNAM), the Fondo Reservado of the Biblioteca Nacional de México, the Archivo General de la Nación (AGN; Mexico City), the Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado de México (AHAM; Mexico City), the Archivo del Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia (BNAH), and, in Spain, the Biblioteca xvi ~ The Art of Professing in Bourbon Mexico Nacional de España (BNE; Madrid) and the Archivo General de las Indias (AGI; Seville). The resources and collection of the Museo Nacional del Virreinato in Tepotzotlán were especially integral to my research. During my tenure in Mexico I had the good fortune to attend a scholarly symposium at this museum that was put together in conjunction with a large exposition of crowned-nun portraits from Latin America and Spain. There I met, learned from, and exchanged ideas with an international group of leading scholars on female monasticism in colonial Latin America. In particular, I would like to thank Manuel Ramos Medina, the late Josefina Muriel, María Concepción Amerlinck de Corsi, and Sor María de Cristo Morales for their enthusiasm for my project and individual suggestions and research leads. Among all these scholars, the astute insights , motivation, and generosity of Alma Montero were unparalleled. Her work on monjas coronadas and female monasticism in colonial Latin America provided a point of departure and a measuring rod for my own work. I also owe a substantial debt of gratitude to my graduate advisor, Elizabeth H. Boone, who deeply enriched my experience at Tulane University , where I began my studies in Latin American art history. Elizabeth always listened carefully to my ideas and encouraged me to articulate them with the greatest clarity and depth. Her research interests, many of which bridge the old pre-Columbian/colonial divide, have informed many of my own scholarly pursuits and continue to fuel my enthusiasm for this still-growing field of study. Similarly, I would like to thank Susan Schroeder, who supported my research at Tulane and deepened my exposure to interdisciplinary scholarship, the New Philology, and an ethnohistorical approach. Additional thanks to the Department of Art and Art History and the Stone Center for Latin American Studies at Tulane University, whose consistent support benefited my education and research on this and other projects. After my time at Tulane, Frances Pohl’s mentorship at Pomona College helped me to develop some of my thoughts on early modern portraiture and images of women. Thereafter, the comments of Fred Luciani , Camilla Townsend, and Asunción Lavrin, all of whom read earlier versions of chapters or proposals for this book, helped me to hone my focus. During my final push in completing this book, my colleagues in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Colorado at Boulder gave me unparalleled support. Among them, I would like to thank Claire Farago, with whom I have had many intellectually invig- Acknowledgments ~ xvii orating conversations that have informed my scholarly interests, and Lia Pileggi, whose technical expertise was instrumental in the preparation of my images. I...