Saint Clare
Ca. 1652. Grey-brown wash, Pencil on laid paper.Not on display
Saint Clare is depicted standing. In her left hand she holds a crosier, representing her authority as foundress of the Order of the Poor Ladies of Saint Clare. With her right hand, she raises a monstrance – one of the eucharistic attributes also associated with Saint Clare – and gazes at it attentively. There is little indication of landscape and horizon in the background; the absence of any other context for the figure is evident.
Wethey associated this drawing with the Getafe altarpiece of 1645. However, Orozco’s identification of this sheet with a beautiful small-scale sculpture, preserved in the convent of the Encarnación (Incarnation) in Granada, is probably more precise. Orozco dates the sculpture and the drawing to around 1652–53, immediately after Cano’s arrival in Granada. The lack of interest in illumination, the emphasis on two-dimensional relief, the calm strokes and the attention to contours are characteristics that this drawing shares with The Immaculate Conception (D68), Saint John the Evangelist (private collection, London) and Standing Angel (D65). These drawings were intended for sculptural rather than pictorial works.
Veliz, Zahira, Alonso Cano (1601-1667): dibujos, Santander, Fundación Marcelino Botín, 2009, p.302-303; nº 53
