Begging for alms to bury Don Álvaro de Luna
1884. Oil on canvas.On display elsewhere
Álvaro de Luna was Constable of Castile and favourite of King John II of Castile. On the death of the monarch, he was arrested in the castle of Portillo and beheaded on public gallows in the main square of Valladolid. His body was buried, thanks to the people’s alms, in the cemetery of the executed, outside the city walls. The scene depicts the moment of the collection. In one of the sides of the canvas, part of the body of the executed man, on a stretcher, can be seen. His head hangs from a pole. Three friars pray and a young man bends down to deposit some coins for the Constable’s burial.
Although the scene takes place in Valladolid, it is quite faithfully set in the Clavero tower in Salamanca. (Matías Guerra, Information provided to the Museum by email, October 2017)
