A New Art in Movement for Social Ostentation: The First Carriages Made in New Spain and the 1706 Ordinances of the Mexico City Guild of Coach-builders

Abstract

Coach building in New Spain, whose origins go back to the sixteenth century, has antecedents both in wagon making—going back to the Conquest itself—and in the arrival, later in the same century, of the first horse-drawn carriages, which signaled the generalization of their use beyond the confines of Europe. There was little delay in efforts to manufacture such items in New Spain too, and the industry was further developed and institutionalized during the following century, in parallel with developments in the Metropolis. Thus the demand of social elites for a new kind of art form serving to proclaim ostentatiously their political, economic and social preeminence was satisfied. In order to attend to the enormous demand for coaches and to systematize the trade, a guild of coach builders was formed as an excision of Mexico City’s guild of carpenters. The guild’s first ordinances are analyzed here in comparison with their Spanish equivalents with the aim of helping appreciate their significance.