Art with an Expert: Revealing the Secrets of an Enconchado Masterpiece at The Met

Name: Art with an Expert: Revealing the Secrets of an Enconchado Masterpiece at The Met
Start: 2026-01-10T16:00:00-06:00
Location: 200 E Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Austin, TX, United States, Texas 78712

Schedule

Sat, 10 Jan, 2026 at 04:00 pm

UTC-06:00

Location

200 E Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Austin, TX, United States, Texas 78712 | Austin, TX

If you’ve been enchanted by the use of enconchado (mother-of-pearl) in works featured in Spirit & Splendor, you won’t want to miss this talk!
The luminous art of enconchados—paintings inlaid with iridescent mother-of-pearl—was one of the most dazzling innovations of viceregal Mexico, blending European imagery and Indigenous craftsmanship. Drawing from a recent conservation project conducted on an enconchado from The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection, this talk explores the materials and techniques that converged to create an artwork that literally glows.
We’ll be joined by guest speaker José Luis Lazarte Luna, Associate Conservator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
This talk is part of Blanton All Day programming on Saturday, January 10 and included with admission. Free for Blanton Members.
Art With an Expert is organized by the Blanton Museum of Art. Support for this program at the Blanton is provided by the Carolyn Harris Hynson Centennial Endowment.
About our Speaker
José specializes in the conservation and restoration of Old Master paintings, focusing primarily on European works from the 15th to the 19th centuries, as well as paintings from the Spanish Americas. He holds an MA in Science from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Graduate Program in Art Conservation. José joined the Met’s staff in 2016 after working for various institutions including ARTEX Conservation Studio, Museo del Prado, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.