Saint John the Evangelist in Patmos
1635 - 1645. Grey-brown wash, Pencil ground, Ink, Pencil on laid paper.Not on display
This drawing depicts a mature Saint John (he may be depicted in youth or old age). He appears seated to the left, possibly on the roots of a tree, and holds a writing tablet. Nevertheless, he is not looking at the tablet, but instead he fixes his gaze towards the eagle that is his emblem. The intense abstraction of his face possibly denotes his visionary state. The elements of Saint John’s vision – the woman of the Apocalypse, God the Father, angels, and the dragon with seven heads – occupy the distant background.
The extensive modifications carried out on this drawing render it, at first glance, comparable to the series of drawings for the cloister of Santa Cruz la Real in Granada. This possibly erroneously led several of Cano’s critics to tentatively include this drawing in the Granada series of Dominican themes. There are probably more examples of the Kneeling Figure in other works, probably Saint John the Evangelist in the National Library, in which there is a similar figure. When disregarding the pigmentation of the wash and its reworking, both drawings present similar features in terms of the technique employed and the quality of the lines drawn in pen and ink.
Veliz, Zahira, Alonso Cano (1601-1667): dibujos, Santander, Fundación Marcelino Botín, 2009, p.262-263
