Santos de Palo

When the island had few priests and fewer churches outside the towns, households kept their own altars, and the figures on them were carved locally in cedar and other soft woods by santeros working without formal training. The result is a folk sculpture with its own conventions: frontal, simplified, often brightly painted, with the Three Kings, the Virgin and Saint Anthony recurring endlessly, and regional styles that specialists can place by hand. Families of carvers, the Cabáns and the Riveras among them, have passed the work down for generations. The best collections are at the Museo de las Américas and the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, and carvers still work in the mountain towns.

What you actually see

• The Three Kings - the most repeated subject, often as a single group.
• Regional styles - differences a specialist can place to a town or family.
• Museum collections - the historic figures in San Juan and Ponce.
• Working carvers - families still making them in the cordillera towns.

When to go

Year-round for the museums. The Barranquitas artisan fair in July and the Three Kings celebrations in early January are the best times to meet carvers and see new work. Craft markets in the mountain towns run at weekends.

Honest expectations

Antique santos are expensive and heavily faked, and export of genuinely old pieces is restricted; buy new work from named carvers instead. Souvenir shops sell mass-produced versions that have nothing to do with the tradition. Pieces are wooden, painted and fragile, so packing them home takes care.

Nearby

The Museo de las Américas is in Old San Juan; the carving towns are in the cordillera.