Spanish Colonial Retablos & Ex-Votos

Retablo (or lamina) is a term for a Latin American devotional painting, especially a small popular or folk art one using iconography derived from traditional Catholic church art. This is a different meaning from the original one in Spanish, which still applies in Spain, and is equivalent to reredos in English or retable in French: a painting, sculpture or combination of the two, rising behind the altar of a church. The Latin etymology of this Spanish word means "board behind"[1].
Spanish retablos of the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance grew extremely large and elaborate, typically using carved and gilded wood, and rising as high as 40 feet or more. The tradition of making them was taken to the new Spanish Empire in America. There, by the late 18th century at least, the word became used for much smaller popular religious paintings, both conventional devotional images and ex-votos (paintings giving thanks for protection through a specific episode).

Aside from being found behind the altar, “similar ornamental structures are built and carved over facades and doorways” (Fernandez 23), called overdoors. Labeling ex-votos as retablos can be traced back to the early 18th century from a man named Robert Montenegro. He published a collection of votive paintings that was dated 1781. He was thanking Nuestra Señora de Dolores de Xaltocan for renewing the people’s health after a severe illness. On the bottom of the retablo left, he inscribed a message that read "en cuia memoria dedica a su Magestad este Retablo" (in whose memory he dedicates to her Majesty this retablo) (Durand, 5).