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San Juan Nepomuceno
José Campeche y Jordán (born San Juan, Puerto Rico 1751-died San Juan, Puerto Rico 1809)
ca. 1798
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 41 3/4 x 29 1/2 in. (106.1 x 74.9 cm.)
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Teodoro Vidal Collection
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
The halo of five stars around the head of San Juan Nepomuceno, the patron saint of confessors, spells out TACUI, Latin for "I did not speak." The letters lead the viewer's eye to the figure of Christ, the object of the saint's devotion. This painting reminded priests of their obligation to remain silent regarding what they heard from those they absolved. José Campeche, a descendant of freed slaves, made a career for himself as an artist and architect, using colonial, European, and folk traditions to create distinctively Puerto Rican artwork at the close of the eighteenth-century.Exhibition Label, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2006
