…Quatuor passions Christi – $26,000 (£20,000) at Swann.
Billed as the first music to be both composed and printed in the New World, Juan Navarro’s setting of …Quatuor passions Christi was one of several items of Mexican origin to do well in an Americana sale on April 16.
Sold for $26,000 (£20,000) at Swann (25/20/12% buyer’s premium), its composer was a Franciscan monk from Cádiz, but this work was created while Navarro was based in the state of Michoacán and printed in Mexico in 1604. The work was intended for use in Indian missionary parishes under mendicant supervision.