Diego Rivera

Holy Saturday
(Sábado de Gloria)

signed, dated ‘Mexico 1937’ and dedicated
watercolor on paper
21¾ × 18¾ inches (55.2 × 47.6 cm)
1937

On the day before Easter Sunday, Mexicans strap huge paper maché ‘Judas’ figures with firecrackers, raise them high on ropes and explode them. The scene here is outside a pulquería in Coyoacán, the neighborhood in the south of Mexico City where Diego and Frida lived in the Blue House.

Provenance:
Acquired from the artist
Elsa Kupfershmid, Mexico
Sale: Sotheby’s, May 9, 1980, lot 45, illus. in color
Private collection, New York

Literature:
Diego Rivera. Catálogo general de obra de caballete, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico, 1989, no. 1416, p. 186