DREAM, UTOPIA AND DISENCHANTMENT. CAYETANO GONZÁLEZ GÓMEZ AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE PROCESSIONAL MONSTRANCE OF THE CATHEDRAL OF MÁLAGA

Abstract

In 1957, the diocese of Malaga decided to rebuild the monstrance and processional litters of the Corpus Christi, which had disappeared in 1936. For this purpose, a commission was set up and called a national contest, awarding two famous workshops the exact reproduction of the pieces. Four splendid unpublished designs made for this purpose by Cayetano González Gómez, the greatest representative of 20th-century Sevillian silverware, born in Malaga, are preserved in the funds of the Diocesan Heritage Delegation. Although they were never materialized, their extraordinary intrinsic plastic quality makes it possible to understand them as an interesting creative reflection on the versatility of ornament and the speaking role of iconography, applied to a secular typology of such success in Spanish silverware.