Lot 304

Mexican Retablo, Martyrdom St. Peter of Verona, ex-Holler & Saunders

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Lot 304
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Mexican Retablo, Martyrdom St. Peter of Verona, ex-Holler & Saunders
Mexican Retablo, Martyrdom St. Peter of Verona, ex-Holler & Saunders
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Mexican Retablo, Martyrdom St. Peter of Verona, ex-Holler & Saunders

Estimate: $1,600 - $2,400

Starting Bid: $800

(0 Bids)
by Artemis Fine Arts
June 11, 2026 9:00 AM MDT
Live Auction
686 S. Taylor Avenue
Suite 108
Louisville, CO, US 80027

Latin America, Mexico., ca. 1900 - 1966 CE. An oil on metal retablo depicting the martyrdom of Saint Peter of Verona, set within a pressed and punched iron frame with painted cloth panels under glass. The composition unfolds against a darkened ground of swirling storm clouds, the Eye of Providence radiating from its luminous triangle at upper right, a divine witness to the scene below. The executioner dominates the left in the Roman soldier's costume that Mexican folk painters conventionally assigned to all persecutors of saints, sword raised mid-stroke. Peter occupies the center-right, his nimbus blazing gold against the dark ground, robes the black and white of the Dominican habit, hands raised in prayer, blood at his crown. He receives the blow not with recoil but with a composure that borders on embrace, a quiet heroism rendered with the directness that is the singular gift of folk painting. Size of retablo: 8.5" W x 10.75" H (21.6 cm x 27.3 cm); of frame: 15" W x 19.1" H (38.1 cm x 48.5 cm)

The iron frame is handsomely worked, its crest a lobed and scalloped corona with repousse fan decoration and dotted borders, the lateral wings stamped with floral roundels, the inset cloth panels beneath glass lending warmth to the metal's austerity.

Peter of Verona (1206-1252) was a Dominican inquisitor of remarkable zeal, born paradoxically to Cathar parents in northern Italy, who became the Church's most formidable weapon against heresy in Lombardy. Ambushed on the road from Como to Milan by assassins hired by the very heretics he had prosecuted, he received a hatchet blow to the skull and a dagger to the throat. Tradition holds that as he lay dying he wrote the opening words of the Creed in his own blood, a detail hagiography could not have invented better had it tried. Canonized within a year of his death, he became the patron of inquisitors and one of the most visually arresting subjects in the Catholic martyrological tradition. This retablo, with its accomplished painting and handsome ironwork surround, is a fine example of a devotional form that has always known how to marry the violent and the tender without apology.

Provenance: Ex-private collection of Samuel Saunders, Nogales, AZ, partner of Holler & Saunders, Ltd., founded in 1979 and widely regarded as one of the preeminent authorities in Spanish Colonial and Mexican folk art.

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Item # 201735

  • Condition: One upper flange of frame has been reattached via tape visible on verso. Some breaks to glass and bending to iron. Otherwise, nice presentation with clear imagery and nice remaining pigments. Rich patina throughout. Suspension loop on verso for display.

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Bid Increments
From: To: Increments:
$0 $749 $25
$750 $1,499 $50
$1,500 $2,999 $100
$3,000 $7,499 $250
$7,500 $14,999 $500
$15,000 + $1,000