Wood, with fall front and 6 drawers. Barniz de Pasto decoration. Granja workshop, 2023

Portable writing box (Bargueño) with barniz de Pasto decoration, with fall front, containing four small internal drawers and two larger drawers below the fall front. Decorated on the outside with a dense scheme of stylised flowers on a brown-gold ground, with borders of stylised guilloche on a white ground and wavy edge in blue/green, with Greek Key motif worked in low relief using thicker mopa mopa. The underside of the hinged, sloping lid depicts and a landscape with village and three volcanos in the background. The six drawers are numbered (with corresponding numbers on the dust board): 3, 4 (two large drawers); 5, 6, 7, 8 (four small).

Given by GRANJA - Barniz de Pasto

Given by the Taller Granja (Granja Workshop), led by Gilberto Granja and Oscar O. Peña Granja; registered file 2023/276

This small writing box with six drawers is a reduced size version of a traditional 17th-century form. The landscape with volcanos (one active) refers to the local topography, and the Galeras (Urcunina) volcano in particular, which Maestro Gilberto includes in much of his work. The foreground scene represents a rural hamlet as he remembers from his childhood, with items from the type of local pottery where he then worked. Floral decoration is a common feature of colonial period barniz, whereas the Greek Key worked in low relief using thicker mopa mopa, and guilloche motif, are more characteristic of the period after independence in 1830. The barniz decoration took approximately 200-240 hours over 25-30 days.

Barniz de Pasto (‘varnish from Pasto’, the city of San Juan de Pasto in southwest Colombia) is a unique surface decoration using a plant resin (mopa mopa) unique to the region. The resin was used by Indigenous peoples before the invasive arrival of the Spanish, but from the 16th century new techniques were developed so as to apply it in the form of coloured film to gourd vessels and European woodwork products. The resulting bright ‘lacquer’ has been worked with extraordinary delicacy and creativity, and continues to be produced, uniquely, in San Juan de Pasto, using resin harvested by a few Indigenous families, in dangerous conditions and at high altitude. In 2020 the technique was included in the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding (Colombia).

For a wide range of perspecives on barniz de Pasto, see the open access Journal Heritage (2023, 6): https://www.mdpi.com/journal/heritage.

Gilberto Granja is a leading barniz master. In 2009 and 2021 he received medals for artisan mastery in the "Traditional" and "Master of Masters" categories, respectively. His son, Oscar O. Peña Granja, works alongside him, and explores alternative routes in design and technical applications, developing collaborative work with university students, artisans, artists and designers. Their barniz product range includes cabinet-making, lathe turning, carved figures and jewellery. In 2023 Gilberto Granja and Oscar O. Peña Granja were filmed demonstrating the techniques at the V&A Lacquer in the Americas conference.

See: https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/museum-life/lacquer-in-the-americas?srsltid=AfmBOorwwG0_8e1uyb-0HN8RQ4ME3dJyvPIH0mvEJBYofrl_CHPjv1zD
or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7KnYxBVT4A
accessed 22/1/2025: see day 1 recording, starting at 4hrs 25mins

The Granja workshop aims to publish the names of the resin collectors, the woodworkers, the lathe operators and varnishers who were involved in the creation of each piece (note: María Cecilia Álvarez-White, El Barniz de Pasto: Secretos Y Revelaciones [Bogotá, D.C., Colombia: Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Artes y Humanidades, 2023], p.300).

Further information
Víctor Chaves R., 'Maestro Gilberto Granja y las manos del artesano' in Arte y artesanías (https://pagina10.com/web/category/pagina10/culturas-2/arte-y-artesanias- culturas-2/)
7 septiembre, 2014 (https: /pagina10.com/web/maestro-gilberto-granja-y-las-manos-del- artesano/)
por Página 10 (https://pagina10.com/web/author/mcepeda/)

MinCultura - Los Hijos de Hefesto, 'La Familia del Barniz', pp.42-7 [online journal published by the Colombian ministry of Culture, 2017]

Madeline Sobral (Cherokee Nation), 'BARNIZ DE PASTO The Magic of Colombia's Mopa Mopa' in First American Art Magazine, NO. 39, SUMMER 2023

Portable writing box (Bargueño) with barniz de Pasto decoration.

W.1-2025