Accession Number

1986.008.0108b

Creation Date

circa 1620

Description

Fragment of fitting detached from crystal button (see 1986.008.0108a). Floral pattern. One of 6 crystal buttons. See also 1986.008.0108a, c--f. 

Exhibition Label

Case Caption (2023):

A COLONIST— DOÑA MARÍA DE AYALA

Doña María de Ayala had traveled from Spain to Potosí with her husband, Martin Salgado de Rivera, in 1615. High in the Andes, Potosí has cool, wet summers, icy winters, and sits on a barren plain. Everything the couple needed had to be carried up the mountains by llamas. María’s day would have been spent working with her servants to stretch household supplies, haggling with local traders for food and fuel, and mending linens and clothes that could not be readily replaced. Occasionally, floods and earthquakes would add to María’s troubles.

But her husband’s appointments had made them wealthy. When they sailed for Spain, they were accompanied by María’s maid, Catalina, and two very young, possibly Indigenous, servant girls. They all drowned aboard the Nuestra Señora de Atocha.
Object Caption (2023):

Crystal Buttons
Quartz (c.1600)
Gift of Jamestown Inc.
1986.008.0108a-g