Before the Nineteenth Century: Cotton Canvas in the Viceroyalty of Peru's Painting

Although most academic literature associates cotton canvas with twentieth century painting, its earlier use, particularly in South American colonial art, has been occasionally mentioned and remains insufficiently documented. This study aims to identify and examine colonial paintings executed on cotton supports in order to verify their use prior to the nineteenth-century industrialization of artists’ materials. Drawing on archival records from the TAREA Foundation and fieldwork conducted in two major Argentine museum collections, the research involved technical fiber analysis. The results confirm the widespread use of cotton supports in paintings from key Andean artistic centers. Contrary to the prevailing view in previous studies of cotton as a sporadically used material, the results indicate that it was regularly employed in the artistic production of the colonial period.