LUIS DE MORALES "THE DIVINE" Lot n° 77

LUIS DE MORALES "THE DIVINE" Badajoz h. 1510 - 1586 Christ tied to the column with repentant Saint Peter Oil on canvas Measurements 102 x 78 cm Luis de Morales promoted throughout his artistic career the establishment of iconographic prototypes intended for private devotion that responded to the religious fervor and spiritualism of the second half of the 16th century in Spain. The painting in question offers a very high level of quality, constituting one of the pieces without a doubt to be incorporated into the reasoned corpus of easel painting by the painter from Badajoz. The work reflects one of the key passages of the Passion of Christ, the moment of vexation and affliction of Jesus tied to the column to be scourged by the executioners. Although the canonical Gospels do not echo the presence of Saint Peter in the flagellation of Christ, this scene had special relevance in Extremadura with Luis de Morales and in Andalusia with Pedro de Campaña and - especially in Córdoba - with Alejo Fernández (Museum of Fine Arts of Córdoba) or the panel preserved in the Gemäldegalerie in Dresden once attributed to Pedro Romana. Solís Rodríguez in 1999 pointed out the probable source of this pictorial theme in the book of Prayer and Meditation by Fray Luis de Granada, which coincided with Morales in Badajoz as prior of the convent of Santo Domingo, pointing to a text from the book printed in 1554: "Then the Savior, and looked at Peter; and his eyes went after that sheep that had been lost. Oh sight of marvelous virtue; oh silent sight, more greatly significant! Peter well understood the language and the voices of that sight; for that of the rooster were not enough to wake him up, and these were. But they declare it from Peter, which did not flow so much from the eyes of Peter as from the eyes of Christ. The painting that is the subject of this study was unveiled by Romero Asenjo and Illán Gutiérrez in 2013 and the authorship of Morales was also corroborated by García-Frías Checa in the monographic exhibition dedicated to him by the Museo Nacional del Prado, the Museo de Bellas Artes of Bilbao and the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in 2015. Known is the example of this theme in the metropolitan cathedral of Santa María de la Almudena in Madrid (oil on walnut panel, 70 x 55 cm) remembered by Palomino as a "most excellent thing", which once belonged to the Imperial College of Madrid. In this version Christ appears to the right of the column and carries a thick noose around his neck. Another copy of Christ at the Column with Saint Peter repentant by Luis de Morales (oil on walnut panel, 83.5 x 60 cm) was unveiled by Benoît-Cattin in 2007 in the parish church of Saint-Willibrord in Gravelines (France) that has many similarities with the specimen we study here. In both, Christ wears the crown of thorns on his head and his body does not bear the imprint of the executioners from the flagellation of the Almudena table, already referred to. However, the rope that surrounds the smooth shaft of the column and the smaller shadow of the Savior's head projected on the veined marble differ. Backsbacka in his monograph on Morales from 1962 points out the copy of Christ in the column of the Comas collection in bust format (oil on panel, 55 x 40 cm) and a copy in the Asensio collection (oil on panel, 88 x 66 cm) that was in the Prado Museum's exhibition on Morales in 1917, which repeats the figure of the bent Christ on the canvas studied here without the figure of Saint Peter in this case and which is surely the one preserved today in the Santa Cruz Museum in Toledo. . In this same study from 1962, Backsbacka refers to another example of Christ to the column with a sudden Saint Peter without referring to measurements and support in a private collection in Madrid that is very similar to the canvas we are dealing with here, but which is offered without the crown of thorns on the head of Christ. We have located an old photo from the IPCE photo library that is surely the same piece. In this case the shadow of Christ's head extends over the entire shaft of the column as in the Gravelines panel. The world of affections is revealed in this painting with the glances between Christ and Saint Peter, the tears on the faces of both and the twitching gesture of the apostle's intertwined fingers in an act of contrition. This autograph canvas by Luis de Morales testifies to the fortune of this iconographic model known through various moralist examples, in which it is also worth mentioning, in addition to those already mentioned, the painting of Christ tied to the column with a tunic (oil on panel, 72 x 71 cm) belonging to the side of the Arroyo de la Luz altarpiece. (See complete study carried out by researcher José Gómez Frechina, March 31, 2022) This work has an export permit.