Miniature mestizo ceramics.Continuities and transformations in the Andean tangible and intangible heritage between the late s. XIX and beginning of the s. xx

Abstract

This work presents the analysis of a set of miniature ceramic pieces that remained unpublished. They were acquired by Debenedetti from artisans from Tupiza, Bolivia, during their field work at the beginning of the s. xx.

In the first place, various concepts related to miniatures in the Andean world were reviewed, as well as their cataloging as mestizos, a classification with which they settled in the books of the Ethnographic Museum of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Buenos Aires in 1918. The latter is important in terms of its context of production within the social processes unleashed as a consequence of the consolidation of Nation States in the region of southern Bolivia and the Argentine Northwest, between the late s. XIX and beginning of the s. xx. Based on this and the characterization of the set of pieces, reflections are drawn that support a hypothesis, previously handled by different researchers, that allows linking the miniatures, Andean tangible heritage, with a conceptual intangible heritage that encompasses, alternatively or jointly, to the ideas of well-being, fertility and/or abundance. Likewise, it is argued that this was possible throughout Andean history with continuities and discontinuities related to some modifications, in this case formal and stylistic.