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The thin naked torso, the cloth made from rushes, the skull and the book suggest that the figure in the painting is a hermit; the bread crust in the foreground tells us that it is Saint Paul, the first hermit, who was brought half a loaf of bread every day by a raven.
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
Sobre una tosca mesa de madera, descrita táctilmente con los pequeños detalles de la calidad del material, visibles en nudos y muescas, aparecen desordenadamente situadas unas cuantas “peritas de San Juan” y un pan en segundo término, junto al cual se eleva una alcarraza de loza muy blanca que bien pudiera ser andaluza. Se denomina popularmente “jarra de cuatro picos” y muestra una decoración de i
On August 29, 1626, King Philip IV’s painter, Vicente Carducho (ca. 1576-1638), signed a contract for the creation of a cycle of paintings to celebrate the founding of the Carthusian Order by Saint Bruno and its leading members. This colossal undertaking sought to visually narrate numerous episodes from the Carthusians’ history and tradition. It was the most complete commission ever dedicated to t
Two pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem meet a traveler, whom the invite to dinner. When their unknown guest blesses the bread on the table, they recognize that he is Christ resurrected. This story is taken from the Gospel of Luke (24, 13-55). The painter sets the scene in a space that is open to an architectural landscape, with a fortress and a Baroque building out of which a figure is leaning. Th
This still life forms part of the group of paintings Vroom dubbed monochrome banketjes or monochrome still lifes which were started in 1629 by Willem Claesz. Heda, but which Pieter Claesz. cultivated with equal mastery, to the point that these two painters are considered its leading exponents. The work is dated 1637 and signed with Claesz´s typical monogram and the enigmatic word TÉNESIUS I
Preparatory sketch for a work possibly intended for the private chapel of the Infante Don Antonio Pascual in the Royal Palace of Aranjuez. The composition is very similar to the Last Supper in the Royal Palace of Madrid painted by Maella in 1794.
Meléndez’s works are characterized by his interest in familiar, everyday realities, which he places in the immediate foreground as if seeking direct contact with the viewer. And yet, in the context of this desire to create a repertoire of common foodstuffs and utensils, we occasionally find a more distinguished and decorative object, less popular than its everyday kitchen surroundings. Here
This work belongs to a series inspired by passages from Don Quixote portrayed with the same satirical humour as in Cervantes´text. The famous knight, seated at a table, is served by innkeepers in a parody of what would have been a court ceremony. Similarities have been pointed out with paintings of this type executed by the Madrid-based French artist Michel-Ange Houasse (1680-1730).
On a table partially covered by a green tablecloth, the painter has placed a white cloth, delicate gold-worked jars and glasses that reflect the light, a dish with ham, bread and a large basket of peaches and several types of grapes. There is also a half-peeled lemon, typical of Nordic still-lifes. In the background, there is a large red curtain and a gallery with columns. Charged with symbolic an
Painted for the base of the main altarpiece of San Esteban in Valencia (P00838, P00839, P00840, P00841 and P00842), Inspired by Leonardo, both in the definition of the space and in the eloquent expressiveness of the apostles, it also shows Juanes’s close relationship with Raphael. In keeping with traditional iconography in Spain, he focussed the scene on Jesus, serene and triumphant at the moment
With the owners or house servants away, the animals sneak into the larder, giving free rein to their instincts. This leads to a fight. Scenes of animal fights in domestic settings were customary in mid-seventeenth-century Flemish painting. They were also frequent in the literature of proverbs, where they were interpreted as moral allusions to the abandonment of responsibilities and their consequen
This is a part of a series of eighteen canvases of biblical themes related in some way to the Eucharist that Escalante painted between 1667 and 1668 for the sacristy of the Merced Calzada in Madrid. They are cited there with great praise by all classical writers. The series was completed by a canvas by Montero de Rojas, Passing the River Jordan with the Ark of the Covenant (P4697).Palomino, in quo
In 1625, Archduchess Isabel Clara Eugenia commissioned Rubens to design a series of twenty tapestries for the Monastery of the Descalzas Reales in Madrid. The subject was the Eucharist, a leading Catholic dogma that the infanta defended in her role as sovereign princess of the southern Netherlands. Rubens conceived the scenes like victory marches, as if the cloths were hanging from baroque archite
This tapestry cartoon represents a popular scene of Majos and Majas on the banks of Madrid´s Manzanares River. The Hermitage of the Virgin of the Port is just visible behind a group of trees on the right. Worthy of mention in this work are the still life in the foreground and the amorous play among the orange-seller and the Majos. The resultant tapestry was intended to hang in the dining roo
Together with his brother Annibale and his cousin Ludovico, Agostino Carracci founded the so-called Accademia degli Incamminati in Bologna. Its teachings promoted the study of nature and the work of the great Renaissance masters in order to avoid the overly-complex forms of Mannerist painting. While the colouring and handling of this canvas are influenced by Tintoretto, the monumental figures of t
Luis Meléndez distinguished himself as the greatest bodegón, or still-life, painter in late eighteenth-century Spain. By this time, the popularity of the genre had declined in Spain and was not practiced by any of Meléndez’ contemporaries at court. Even so, Meléndez painted over one hundred bodegones in his lifetime, leading art historians to infer that he took a person
