ABSTRACT
The montage-like statuettes that you see in the pictures on the left examples of a popular art form from 19th-century Bahia and are called O Menino Jesus no Monte, the Child Jesus on the Mountain. They are sometimes also referred to as lapinhas, ‘little caves’, as many of them exhibit a dark void in the middle of the mountain, suggestive of a cave. What little information I found on these lapinhas reveals that they were made in Bahian convents in the Recôncavo area. The nuns from the Convento de Recolhimento de Nosso Senhora dos Humildes in the town of Santo Amaro de Purificação where particularly famed for their artistic skills, and produced a great number of these lapinhas. Guarded under glass bell jars or in oratories, they were put on display in Bahian homes in the Christmas period (Marques & Araújo 2006; Silva 2007).
