Taken together, these three works clearly convey a Eucharistic meaning. They depict Christ holding up the chalice and the Host, flanked by two Old Testament figures: King Melchizedek, bearing bread and wine (P00853), and the priest Aaron with a jar of incense (P00854). The three panels were part of the tabernacle of the high altar in the church of the Birth of the Virgin in Fuente de la Higuera (V
This panel depicts the moment when the dead Christ’s body has been lowered from the cross and is attended at its foot by the Virgin, Saint John and Mary Magdalene. In the middle-ground are Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus and one of the Holy Women. The panel must have been part of a larger work of which nothing is now known.
Unlike the adoration of the shepherds, which took place at night according to the gospel account, the nocturnal setting for the Holy Family´s flight into Egypt was an invention of the painter, since Mathew 2: 13-15 narrates how an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and warned him that the child was in danger, but does not state that the Family departed at night or preferred to leave at sunset. In
This portrait commemorates Charles V’s victory over the Schmalkaldic League at Mühlberg on 24 April 1547. The Emperor is equipped in the manner of the light cavalry with a half pike and wheel-lock pistol. His suit of armour was made around 1545 by Desiderius Helmschmid and has an image of the Virgin and Child on the breastplate, as was customary with Charles’ armour from 1531. Panofsky pointe
This portrait depicts Prince Carlos (1545-1568), heir to the Spanish throne and son of Felipe II (1556-1598), by his first wife and cousin, Manuela de Portugal (1528-1545). This work idealizes the Prince´s face and body when, in fact, he was born with grave physical and psychological malformations that may have been due to his parents´ inbreeding. Both his clothing —a cape lined with lynx fur and
Juan van der Hamen y León´s output alternates between compositionally complex still lifes and works that are smaller in size and constructed more simply, such as this canvas. It depicts a pewter, possibly silver, plate holding a small pile of plums (or sloes), and cherries. As is habitual in this type of work, the plate is placed in the close foreground, sitting on the edge of a stone ledge
Taken together, these three works clearly convey a Eucharistic meaning. They depict Christ holding up the chalice and the Host (P00844), flanked by two Old Testament figures: King Melchizedek, bearing bread and wine (P00853), and the priest Aaron with a jar of incense (P00854). The three panels were part of the tabernacle of the high altar in the church of the Birth of the Virgin in Fuente de la H
Salome, an Edomite princess born of Herodias and the wife of Herod Philip I, carries the severed head of Saint John the Baptist on a tray, illustrating a Bible passage from Matthew (14:1–11) and Mark (6:22–28). Titian had already painted this story in 1516 (Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome), with a pyramidal composition that showed Salome bearing the saint’s head on a tray held chest high, and a serv
Although for this first version Jacopo borrowed elements from early works such as the young man peeking his head round the column, which appears in the 1536 La fornace ardente (Bassano del Grappa, Museo Civico), he drew mainly from Stefano Cernotto´s Expulsion of the Merchants from the Temple (Venice, Accademia, deposited at the Ceni Foundation). Cernotto, an artist of Dalmatian origin who worked
This scene from the life of Saint Bernard depicts the Virgin Mary’s apparition to the Cistercian monk and the miraculous milk he received from her breasts as thanks for his devotion. He is accompanied by his customary iconographic symbols: an abbot’s staff, the bishop’s miter that he rejected, and books alluding to the texts he dedicated to Mary. This work was originally the central panel of one o
Three soldiers flank the apostle and patiently observe his long agony. They are dressed in the attire characteristic of this type of figure that appears in many of Correa’s works. The two figures on the left are reminiscent of the two figures depicted on the left in The Resurrection of Christ in the cloister of the no longer extant convent of San Juan de la Penitencia in Toledo. It is considered t
This work´s existence and interest were noticed by Valencian specialist and director of that city´s Museum of Fine Arts, Fernando Benito Domenech. That museum´s Juan de Juanes exhibition in 2000 included this panel and convincingly related it to the Saint Eligius Altarpiece, which the Valencian Silversmiths´ Guild had commissioned for the church of Santa Catalina in 1534. That contract called for
This panel is part of the altarpiece or seasonal altar of the Guisando Nativity (P00683–P00690). This is a structure frequently found in numerous Spanish monastic cloisters. It comes precisely from the Hieronymite monastery of Guisando (Ávila), as cited by Ponz in 1773. In the cloister, the altarpiece was set into a wall and formed a sort of box. The doors of the altarpiece depict The Visit
King Philip II the Prudent presented this painting for the monastery of El Escorial in 1574. At that time, it was considered to be the work of Francesco Salviati and was described as follows: ‘A panel, five-and-a-half feet in height and four-and-a-half feet in width, on which Our Lady with the naked child in her arms and Joseph are depicted by Salviate Romano, painter to the King of France.’ Despi
Alfonso d´Avalos, first Marchese del Vasto, was born in Ischia on 25 May 1502 to a noble Neapolitan family of Castilian origins. He fought in Pavia (1525) under the orders of his uncle Fernando d´Avalos, Marchese di Pescara, inheriting his titles and estates on his uncle´s death that same year. In 1535 D´Avalos commanded the army that conquered Tunis and in 1538, he was appointed governor of Milan
In contrast to the paintings created for the Camerino d´Alabastro and the poesie made for Philip II, the canvases on the subject of Venus do not form a homogenous group as they were not painted for one client, nor were they designed to be shown together. In fact, the five paintings on this subject are variations on one idea. Located in a villa on the Venetian terra ferma, they depict Venus reclini
Among the commissions that Correa made for the former monastery of the Bernardine fathers at Santa María la Real de Valdeiglesias are a group of three panels with scenes from the Passion of Christ. Their representations in circular compositions and many stylistic similarities indicate that they belonged to the same set. These three panels depict three successive stories: Pilate washing his
In this half-length portrait, the young man wears a red cap and holds a musical instrument that combine features of both the vihuela and the violin. While only partially visible, its fretted neck suggests it belongs to the family of the bowed vihuela or viola da gamba, but its bow and part of the pegbox are closer in appearance to those of the violin family, suggesting it is a hybrid of both. Thes