Museum of Religious Art - Adeje

The Museo de Arte Sacro de la Villa de Adeje opened its doors for the first time in May 1995 .

The building itself, the former church of the Franciscan monastery, a unique witness to the Baroque period in the Canary Islands, is a fundamental part of this museum.
It houses a rather heterogeneous collection, consisting of the Gobelin carpets , owned by the Diocese of Tenerife, and a group of pieces of a religious nature, most of which were previously owned by D. Antonio Mesquida Obrador and which today are part of the cultural heritage of this city.

These tapestries, considered unique in the religious heritage of the Canary Islands , were donated to the parish in 1745 by the Marchioness of Adeje and Countess of La Gomera to be exhibited in the church of the Monastery of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe and San Pablo, where they are currently on display. They come from French workshops and the weaving technique and the type of vegetable representation used place them at the famous “Manufactura Real de Gobelinos de París” from the last third of the 17th century.

They have common characteristics: the wool weave is tight and sturdy; the color is dark, with some pastel shades (pink, light green, lemon yellow); the landscape is large, in contrast to the small-scale representation of the figures; the clothing of the figures is classic; the iconography has a mythological theme; the drawing is not very precise; the borders are wide and decorated with exotic (brightly colored birds) and mythological (sphinxes) themes, along with vases and floral wreaths. The similarity of the edges suggests that they were part of a series.

Willem Vandenameele