G?lvez

Guatemalan family of sculptors. Antonio Joseph de G?lvez was a master carpenter and mason. Few of his works are known. In 1720 he contracted with S Francisco, Santiago de Guatemala (now Antigua), to make the monumento (altar) used on Maundy Thursdays. He was in charge of the rebuilding of the monastic hospital of S Pedro in Santiago de Guatemala. His son Francisco Javier de G?lvez was also a master carver, whose surviving works show high ability. In 1747 Francisco Javier contracted to make the retable of the Crucifixion (untraced) in the Capilla de Los Reyes in Santiago de Guatemala Cathedral. In 1758 he was commissioned by the church of La Merced in Santiago de Guatemala to make two retables (Guatamala City, la Merced), one of Jesus of Nazareth and the other of Our Lady of Slavery. He also worked in the Real Palacio in the 1760s under the direction of Luis D?ez Navarro. Francisco Javier's brother, Vicente de G?lvez (d 1780), was also a master carver. He directed the erection of the temporary catafalques for the funeral ceremonies of Ferdinand VI (1760) and Isabella Farnese (1767) and probably also made others. Vicente moved to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, where he made the high altar of the parish church, and at his death he was working on the statues of El Se?or Crucificado de las Animas and St Joseph and the gilding of the pulpit. Both Francisco Javier and Vicente can be considered among the principal exponents of Spanish American Baroque in Guatemala. They developed new forms of columns and pilasters and at the same time extended the decorative repertory of altarpieces and occasional architecture.

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