The Recovery of the Bahía de Todos los Santos

A bay named for all of them at once

The place in this title is the Bay of All Saints, on the Brazilian coast. It is not a saint but a plural — the feast that collects the whole calendar, used as a name for a piece of water. That is the far end of the process this catalogue tracks. A saint is identified by an object; the object makes the name usable; the name is given to a chapel, then a settlement, then a coastline; and by the time it reaches a canvas, the figures have gone entirely and only the word is left.

What the record holds

The entry is dated 1635 and gives the Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain as its location. The dimensions are 309 x 381 cm, very large and horizontal — the scale of a public history painting. It is filed under Landscapes and River, cultural heritage in both its religious and mythological headings, and Fantasy, with Baroque as the style and Spanish as the nationality; the measured colour family is ochre.

A religious tag on a military subject

The record puts a religious cultural heritage heading on a work whose title records the recovery of a harbour. That is a defensible filing rather than an error: the name in the title is liturgical, and an index that reads titles has to put the word somewhere. What the entry does not say is anything about the events the title names, and nothing is added here.