This seventeenth-century ivory plaque in the National Museum of Decorative Arts in Madrid is one of the stranger religious images attributed to the Philippines. The work shows the Nave Typus Religionis, or Ship of Religion, a Counter-Reformation allegory in which the Catholic Church is imagined as a vessel crossing the sea of life while demons, Death, and spiritual enemies attack it from all sides.

The composition may derive from an engraving titled Typus Religionis, made by an unknown artist around the end of the sixteenth or beginning of the seventeenth century, possibly in the Netherlands. That engraving was printed, colored, and varnished so that it resembled a painting, and was placed in the Jesuit college of Billom in France. Its imagery developed from the older theme of the Ship of the Church, traditionally governed by Saint Peter and safely reaching port. Over time, this theme evolved into the Ship of Religion, where the regular life of the religious orders appears inside the vessel, usually arranged beneath the authority of the Pope.

The engraving introduced a controversial variation. In it, the Pope and Henry IV of France appear dragged behind the main ship of faith, suggesting their dependence on the Jesuits for salvation. This detail later became politically dangerous. During the trial that led to the expulsion of the Jesuits from France in 1762, the image was used as evidence of Jesuit disrespect toward both the papacy and the king. Later, under Charles III, the Jesuits were also expelled from Spanish territories, including the Philippines.

The Philippine ivory plaque appears to transform this charged European model into a dense, carved devotional object. A ship fills the plaque from bottom to top. At its center stands Our Lady of Sorrows, with a dagger piercing her chest. She is surrounded by saints, clergy, and religious orders. A king beside her may be Saint Ferdinand, remembered as a protector of religious communities. A decapitated saint nearby may be Saint Denis, the first bishop of Paris, whose church at Montmartre was associated with the early vows of the founders of the Society of Jesus.

The foreground is full of strange details. A male figure drops anchor, possibly Saint Francis Xavier, accompanied by Saint Ignatius of Loyola and other Dominican, Franciscan, or Augustinian figures holding oars. Another figure, likely Judas, appears hanged. A man with a millstone around his neck tries desperately to climb into the ship, referring to Christ’s warning in Luke 17:1–6: “It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.” A figure with a papal tiara and an anchor on his back also struggles near the vessel. Saint Paul, identified by his sword, seems to abandon the half-sunken ship below.

Above the ship are the Arma Christi, the instruments of the Passion, presented almost like heraldic weapons against Satan. These include the cross, the column of the Flagellation, the rooster of Peter’s denial, the hammer, the lance of Longinus, the pincers used to remove the nails, the dice cast for Christ’s garments, and the sun and moon recalling the darkness at Christ’s death. The ship is therefore not simply sailing. It is guided and defended by the Passion of Christ.

The craziness of the image continues. A cherub blows divine wind into the sails. Demons blow back from the opposite side. Others shoot arrows, breathe fire, and attack from below. Death joins the assault. The whole plaque becomes a miniature theater of salvation, scandal and shipwreck.

In terms of visual effect, it can be compared to Hieronymus Bosch’s Ship of Fools. Both images use the ship as a crowded moral world and overload the vessel with bodies, gestures, symbols, and grotesque incidents. The viewer is forced to scan the image from one strange detail to another.

In Bosch’s ship, the passengers are foolish, corrupt, and spiritually adrift. The disorder comes from inside the boat. In the Philippine ivory plaque, the main ship is holy. The danger comes from outside: demons, Death, hostile winds, arrows, fire, and the scandal of those who fail to remain with the true vessel of faith. Bosch gives us society collapsing into folly. This plaque gives us the Catholic Church under supernatural siege, holding course through a demonic sea.

The object sheds more light on the history of Spanish-Philippine ivory carving. Manila was the center of workshops where skilled Filipino artisans, initially trained in part by Chinese artists, produced religious objects for global circulation. These works moved through the Manila galleon trade to New Spain and then to Spanish ports.

Dr. Margarita Estella studied this work in “The Representation of the Church Nave in an Ivory Relief,” published in Traza y Baza in 1983. Her reading shows the density of the image: a triumphalist vision of the Roman Church, a contemplative image of religious life, a Jesuit allegory, and a scene of anti-demonic struggle. The plaque was recently treated as a collector’s object, with an asking price of €60,000. It now appears to have been acquired by the Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas.

Wider transoceanic print tradition

The Philippine ivory plaque belongs to a wider print-based tradition of representing the Church as a ship. The most important comparison is Philippe Thomassin’s Triumphus Ecclesiae, engraved in Rome in 1602. The print was made from eight plates and presents the Church as a vast allegorical vessel moving through a sea filled with enemies, errors, and spiritual dangers. Its inscriptions identify the figures and explain the structure of the allegory, making the print especially useful for understanding later painted and carved versions of the subject.

The image circulated beyond Europe. In colonial Mexico, the same allegorical family appears in Miguel Jiménez’s eighteenth-century El triunfo de la iglesia (El vaso de la contemplación mística), now in the Museo Nacional del Virreinato in Tepotzotlán. The Mexican painting shows the Church as a crowded ship carrying sacred figures, religious orders, angels, inscriptions, and symbols of victory. It also keeps the maritime structure of the allegory intact: the Church moves across water while hostile forces are defeated around it.

The Peruvian evidence is equally important. Sara Redaelli has shown that the eighteenth-century Nave de la Iglesia in the Museo Pedro de Osma in Lima is based on Thomassin’s Triumphus Ecclesiae. Her study also places the Lima painting within a larger series of European and viceregal examples, including works in Mexico, Potosí, Huancavelica, Ocopa, Spain, and Italy. These comparisons show that the ship of the Church as a mobile Catholic image, repeatedly translated through prints, paintings, and devotional objects.

The comparison should not be reduced to a single source-copy relationship. Margarita Estella had already noted that the ivory relief’s source was not securely identified and that it appeared to combine several printed models. This makes the Philippine plaque especially interesting in the way it compresses a large Counter-Reformation allegory into a small ivory object made for close viewing. In Manila or in a Hispano-Philippine workshop, the Church-as-ship became portable, tactile, and densely carved.

The ship allegory also took on a more Marian and affective form. In La Nave de la Paciencia Cristiana at the Templo de San Diego de Alcalá in Huejotzingo, Puebla, Christ appears crucified as the mast of the vessel, and the Virgin stands inside the ship as the grieving Mother. The image retains the dangers of the sea, demons, and death, then redirects the subject from ecclesiastical triumph toward Christian endurance.

This Marian version shows the flexibility of the ship motif. The Church remains the vessel of salvation, and Mary gives that vessel an intimate devotional center.

Many more examples remain to be examined. The works discussed here already show that the ivory plaque stands at the meeting point of print culture and Philippine ivory carving. Its compact arrangement, inscriptions, borders, clouds, and crowded vessel belong to a Catholic allegorical language that circulated across the Iberian world. Its medium gives that language a specifically Philippine form.

Notes

1. Philippe Thomassin, Triumphus Ecclesiae [The Triumph of the Church / The Vessel of Mystic Contemplation], Rome, 1602, engraving in eight plates, Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome.
2. Miguel Jiménez, El triunfo de la iglesia (El vaso de la contemplación mística), eighteenth century, oil on canvas, Museo Nacional del Virreinato, Tepotzotlán.
3. Sara Redaelli, “Nave de la Iglesia del Museo Pedro de Osma en Lima: consideraciones desde los puntos de vista iconográfico y epigráfico,” Hipogrifo 13, no. 2 (2025): 387–413.
4. Noemí Marín, “Un relieve hispano-filipino de marfil brilla en Ansorena,” ARS Magazine, September 19, 2024, updated October 30, 2024.
5. Noemí Marín, “El Estado compra el relieve hispano-filipino por 97.600 € en Ansorena,” ARS Magazine, September 27, 2024, updated October 30, 2024.
6. Margarita Estella, “La representación de la Nave de la Iglesia en un relieve de marfil,” Traza y Baza: Cuadernos Hispanos de Simbología, Arte y Literatura 8 (1983): 97–101.
7. Most of the information from the first half of the article was translated from Noemí Marín, “Un relieve hispano-filipino de marfil brilla en Ansorena,” ARS Magazine, September 19, 2024, updated October 30, 2024.
8. See Margarita Estella Marcos, “La representación de la nave de la iglesia en un relieve de marfil,” Traza y Baza: Cuadernos Hispanos de Simbología, Arte y Literatura, no. 8 (1983): 97–101.
9. La Nave de la Paciencia Cristiana, Templo de San Diego de Alcalá, Huejotzingo, Puebla. Photo: Eduardo Limón.See also Workshop of Gerhard Altzenbach, Navis Patientiae (Schif der Gedult), second quarter of the seventeenth century, engraving, Cologne.