Material Memories: Female Hairworks at Casa Cautiño in Guayama

Abstract

In the nineteenth century, various war conflicts and epidemics increased mortality significantly in the Western world, greatly influencing the work of artists and artisans at the time, who sought to keep alive the memories of loved ones. In some of these artworks, mainly made by women, human hair functions as a principal medium aimed at preserving tangible memory. The Casa Cautiño Museum in Guayama (Puerto Rico) has two works of this genre, made from Juana Monserrate Vázquez‘s hair. Here they are both subjected to a formal and iconographic analysis, in a family-oriented and historical context.