These paintings were produced in the ancient viceroyalty of Peru during the Colonial period (16th, 17th and 18th centuries) in workshops that carried out custom-made orders, which at times were destined for distant places.
Paintings of angels with guns were perhaps representative of both the power of the Spaniards over indigenous people and protection offered to faithful Christians.
Church of Calamarca, about 60 km from La Paz, Bolivia, contains the most complete existing series of ángeles arcabuceros, including the Asiel Timor Dei by Master of Calamarca (around 1680), that are considered notable examples of the type.
The Catholic Counter Reformation held a militaristic ideology that portrayed the Church as an army and angels as its soldiers. The armed angel in Asiel Timor Dei represented this philosophy: its gun and mere existence protects faithful Christians.
An Ángel arcabucero (arquebusier angel) is an angel depicted with an arquebus (an early muzzle-loaded firearm) instead of the sword traditional for martial angels, dressed in clothing inspired by that of the Criollo and Andean nobles and aristocrats.
These paintings were produced in the ancient viceroyalty of Peru during the Colonial period (16th, 17th and 18th centuries) in workshops that carried out custom-made orders, which at times were destined for distant places.
The figure is graceful and almost looks like a dancer. The extended lines of the angel's body recall the Mannerist style still preferred in the Americas in the seventeenth century (Mannerism was a style that came after the Renaissance, in the early 1500s).
These paintings were produced in the ancient viceroyalty of Peru during the Colonial period (16th, 17th and 18th centuries) in workshops that carried out custom-made orders, which at times were destined for distant places.