La Dote Argentia.

Ana María Presta.

A dowry is equal to donation, property, legacy and value. It commercializes the body, covers the walls, and exposes things. It includes both the new and the used. It is measured in money, furniture and estate, clothing and belongings, ornaments and jewelry. It is composed of an emerald necklace and a brass choker, a pearl pin and a brass one, a ruby bracelet and a bead one, an ebony cross and one made with sticks, a silver Christ and a worn plate depicting Saint Anthony of Padua. It possesses gender specificity; it prerepresents class and denotes identity. It reaches, dresses and undresses all women, rich and poor. For a woman to be wed, it was impossible to dispense with it. And thus does María Silvia Corcuera expose it in her work in this, our current Argentia.