Emblem of Folly
Cusco School (anonymous), 18th century
$191
Print check at 16 x 20 in: 185 dpi, good. Trimmed 7.3% to the shape of the print.
Shipping to a US address: $25.90 for this piece, from the print room in Charlotte, North Carolina.
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Not every Cusco School canvas was devotional. Emblem paintings — allegorical images built to be "read" panel by panel, often paired with mottoes, popular across Counter-Reformation Europe as moral teaching tools — were also produced by Andean workshops for private, secular display. This one belongs to that tradition: a symbolic tableau warning against foolishness rather than illustrating scripture or a saint's life. These emblem pieces are a useful corrective to any flattened idea of the Cusco School as purely a religious-icon factory: the same workshops that gilded a Virgin's mantle also produced witty, moralizing genre pictures for wealthy colonial households, in a visual language closer to European print culture than to church altarpieces. A window into the room this hung in — not a chapel, but a parlor.
- Maker
- Cusco School (anonymous)
- Date
- 18th century
- Medium of the original
- Oil on canvas
- Original held by
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York — The American Wing
- Credit
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York — The American Wing
- Rights
- Public domain, verified
- Catalogue number
- PA-00169
| Picture | 16 x 20 in |
|---|---|
| Outside size | 17.6 x 21.6 in |
| Depth | 0.9 in (22 mm) |
| Weight | [[REAL PROOF NEEDED: shipped weight per size and frame]] |
| Hanging | [[REAL PROOF NEEDED: hanging hardware Prodigi fits to this frame]] |
| Material | Enhanced matte art paper, 200 gsm; acrylic glazing |
| Made in | Charlotte, North Carolina, by Prodigi |
Before a size goes on sale, the file is measured against it: pixels per inch at that size, how much of the picture a crop would lose, tone and sharpness. A size that fails is not offered, so there is nothing to choose wrong.
| Size | dpi | Grade | How it fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 x 10 in | 370 | Excellent | Trimmed 7.3% |
| 11 x 14 in | 264 | Excellent | Trimmed 8.9% |
| 16 x 20 in | 185 | Good | Trimmed 7.3% |
| Size | Why |
|---|---|
| 8 x 12 in | Wrong shape: a 23% crop |
| 12 x 16 in | Wrong shape: a 13% crop |
| 12 x 18 in | Wrong shape: a 23% crop |
| 16 x 24 in | Wrong shape: a 23% crop |
| 18 x 24 in | Wrong shape: a 13% crop |
| 20 x 30 in | Wrong shape: a 23% crop |
| 24 x 30 in | 123 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 24 x 36 in | Wrong shape: a 23% crop |
| 30 x 40 in | Wrong shape: a 13% crop |
| 36 x 48 in | Wrong shape: a 13% crop |
| 40 x 60 in | Wrong shape: a 23% crop |
- Scanned
- 2026-10-07
- Master file
- 3,194 x 3,702 px, srgb, sRGB.icc
- Tone
- Darks 30, lights 141 of 255; 0% clipped light, 0.1% clipped dark
- Colour
- 0% vivid
- Sharpness
- 21.04
Shipping for this piece to a US address is $25.90, the print room’s own rate, charged per piece. Checkout shows the total before you pay.
Every piece is printed after you order it, in Charlotte, North Carolina, and ships from there. For now we ship to US addresses only.
A piece that arrives damaged, misprinted or in the wrong size is replaced at our cost. The details: shipping and returns and replacements.
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