A PAST REDISCOVERED
Things to Notice Seam where the hide was stitched together.
What Kinds of Paints Were Used? Paint was applied directly to the hides with no gesso or background preparation. The blue paint is an indigo dye while the other colors are organic materials (clays for red and yellow) or minerals (iron sulfate for green and black) ground and made locally.
Things to Notice Holes in various parts of the picture might be from bullets piercing the bison’s hide.
TEXT ADAPTED FROM NEW MEXICO HISTORY MUSEUM: WWW.NMHISTORYMUSEUM.ORG/HIDES/
The Artistic Style The late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were the final great period of European battle tapestries, the style of which may have influenced the commissioned Segesser hides. The wide, broadly painted flower and leaf borders simulate carved or gilded frames, which were typical of European tapestries from the same era.
A Hide’s Hidden History
T
Segesser Hide II has a deep back story.
HE17-FOOT-LONG PAINTING,
WHO WAS SEGESSER? Father Philipp
in Great Plains Quarterly in 1990, the
Segesser II, featured in A Past
von Segesser von Brunegg, a Jesuit
paintings may have been neglected
Rediscovered: Highlights
priest with a mission in Mexico, sent
or disappeared had it not been for
from the Palace of the
the hide paintings to his brother in
Seminarian Gottfried Hotz, who was the
Governors is one of the most important
Switzerland in 1758. The hides depict
curator of the North American Indian
Spanish Colonial objects in New Mexico.
Spanish, French, Oto, Pawnee, Apache,
Museum in Zurich. Hotz researched the
It is the largest of three hide paintings
and Pueblo Indians in a historical battle.
paintings’ origins, and reached out to
from this period. The hide’s story—its
Over the years, the paintings changed
Dr. Bertha Dutton, curator of ethnology
creation, acquisition, and the narrative
hands among the Segesser clan but
at the Museum of New Mexico at the
it depicts—has fascinated historians and
remained in Switzerland.
time. Hotz’s research identified Segesser
prompted them to re-interpret events of the time. 2
SUMMER 2019
As Thomas Chavez, then-director of the Palace of the Governors, wrote
Art. History. People.
II as showing the Spanish and Pueblo troops surrounded by European soldiers
