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拍品专文
Luis de Morales painted this refined panel in the 1560s, when he was at the height of his powers. The subject, Ecce Homo (‘Behold the Man’), is derived from the words uttered by Pontius Pilate as he presented the scourged Christ to a hostile crowd shortly before His Crucifixion, as recounted in the Gospel of John (XIX: 5). Set against a dark background, the Saviour’s tortured figure is illuminated by an unseen light source that emanates from upper left, heightening the painting’s profound spirituality. Christ appears bust-length, with his head turned downwards and his eyes lowered. His crown of thorns has been removed, leaving a trail of cuts from which blood runs down his forehead and over his right shoulder. Morales has reduced his composition to a bare minimum–Christ’s only attribute is the reed staff with which he was beaten and mockingly given as sceptre–so that the viewer is forced to focus directly on the emotional experience of Christ’s suffering.
The art historian Juan Miguel Serrera first suggested in 1988 (loc. cit.) that the present Ecce Homo originally formed the central panel of a triptych, flanked by the two panels representing St. Francis of Assisi and St. Peter of Verona. Today housed in the Colección Masaveu, Madrid, these two half-length representations of Mendicant saints would have created a meaningful conversation with the present image, as both are evocative of Christ’s Passion – Francis through his stigmatization and Peter through his martyrdom. In the early 20th century, all three works were in the collection of Rafael García in Madrid. The St. Francis of Assisi and St. Peter of Verona were both formerly documented in the convent of Santa Fe de Comendadoras de Santiago in Toledo and evidence suggests that the present work also shares this early provenance, though as Ángel Aterido notes (loc. cit., 2015), the documentation is inconsistent. One early source speaks of an Ecce Homo paired with `the Most Holy Mary’ in the Toledo cloister, while another only cites the Ecce Homo, and a third records the two saints and not the image of Christ (ibid.). In 1999, Solís Rodríguez (loc. cit.) expressed hesitation about the theory that the three panels originally formed a triptych, noting the difference in scale (the Masaveu panels each measure approximately 77 x 34 cm) and a lack of connection between the figures. Aterido correctly observes, however, that this disparity in scale is entirely consistent with Morales’s practice, as evidenced by the Triptych of Bishop Juan de Ribera in the Museo de Cádiz, Cádiz and the Triptych of the Pietà, St. John and St. Mary Magdalene in the Prado, Madrid (loc. cit., 2015).
Morales’ intensely spiritual and highly-refined paintings reflect the profoundly religious atmosphere that saturated Counter-Reformation Spain. As objects of meditation suited to the mystical reflection championed by contemporary religious luminaries such as St. Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582), St. Peter of Alcántara (1499-1562), and Fray Luis de Granada (1504-1588), since at least the beginning of the eighteenth century, Morales’ paintings earned him the epithet ‘The Divine’. As Antonio Palomino (1653-1726), Morales’ early biographer wrote: ‘He was given the sobriquet of El Divino, both because all his paintings were of sacred subjects, and because he made heads of Christ with hair of such great delicacy and subtlety that those with a curiosity for art are tempted to try to make it move by blowing on it, since it seems to have the same subtlety as natural hair...’ (quoted in L. Ruiz Gomez, op. cit., p. 34).
As evidenced by the present Ecce Homo, Morales’ paintings blend the expressive realism of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Flemish painters with the innovations of High Renaissance masters such as Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael to create powerful, almost iconic images. Throughout his career, Morales returned to the subject of the Ecce Homo and its counterpart, the Mater Dolorosa, on numerous occasions, all with slight variations to the figures’ pose and attributes. Though the iconography was well-established by the sixteenth century, Morales’ treatment here was heavily informed by Sebastiano del Piombo’s Christ Bearing the Cross, which had been painted in Rome around 1536-37 for the Fourth Count of Cifuentes. It is uncertain whether or not Morales would have seen Sebastiano’s painting in person, or whether he would only have known it from copies, such as one by his contemporary in the Spanish court, the Portuguese painter Manuel Denís. Another Italian source was likely the Mocking of Christ by Giampietrino (c. 1495-1540), now in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan (loc. cit., pp. 133-136).
The art historian Juan Miguel Serrera first suggested in 1988 (loc. cit.) that the present Ecce Homo originally formed the central panel of a triptych, flanked by the two panels representing St. Francis of Assisi and St. Peter of Verona. Today housed in the Colección Masaveu, Madrid, these two half-length representations of Mendicant saints would have created a meaningful conversation with the present image, as both are evocative of Christ’s Passion – Francis through his stigmatization and Peter through his martyrdom. In the early 20th century, all three works were in the collection of Rafael García in Madrid. The St. Francis of Assisi and St. Peter of Verona were both formerly documented in the convent of Santa Fe de Comendadoras de Santiago in Toledo and evidence suggests that the present work also shares this early provenance, though as Ángel Aterido notes (loc. cit., 2015), the documentation is inconsistent. One early source speaks of an Ecce Homo paired with `the Most Holy Mary’ in the Toledo cloister, while another only cites the Ecce Homo, and a third records the two saints and not the image of Christ (ibid.). In 1999, Solís Rodríguez (loc. cit.) expressed hesitation about the theory that the three panels originally formed a triptych, noting the difference in scale (the Masaveu panels each measure approximately 77 x 34 cm) and a lack of connection between the figures. Aterido correctly observes, however, that this disparity in scale is entirely consistent with Morales’s practice, as evidenced by the Triptych of Bishop Juan de Ribera in the Museo de Cádiz, Cádiz and the Triptych of the Pietà, St. John and St. Mary Magdalene in the Prado, Madrid (loc. cit., 2015).
Morales’ intensely spiritual and highly-refined paintings reflect the profoundly religious atmosphere that saturated Counter-Reformation Spain. As objects of meditation suited to the mystical reflection championed by contemporary religious luminaries such as St. Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582), St. Peter of Alcántara (1499-1562), and Fray Luis de Granada (1504-1588), since at least the beginning of the eighteenth century, Morales’ paintings earned him the epithet ‘The Divine’. As Antonio Palomino (1653-1726), Morales’ early biographer wrote: ‘He was given the sobriquet of El Divino, both because all his paintings were of sacred subjects, and because he made heads of Christ with hair of such great delicacy and subtlety that those with a curiosity for art are tempted to try to make it move by blowing on it, since it seems to have the same subtlety as natural hair...’ (quoted in L. Ruiz Gomez, op. cit., p. 34).
As evidenced by the present Ecce Homo, Morales’ paintings blend the expressive realism of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Flemish painters with the innovations of High Renaissance masters such as Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael to create powerful, almost iconic images. Throughout his career, Morales returned to the subject of the Ecce Homo and its counterpart, the Mater Dolorosa, on numerous occasions, all with slight variations to the figures’ pose and attributes. Though the iconography was well-established by the sixteenth century, Morales’ treatment here was heavily informed by Sebastiano del Piombo’s Christ Bearing the Cross, which had been painted in Rome around 1536-37 for the Fourth Count of Cifuentes. It is uncertain whether or not Morales would have seen Sebastiano’s painting in person, or whether he would only have known it from copies, such as one by his contemporary in the Spanish court, the Portuguese painter Manuel Denís. Another Italian source was likely the Mocking of Christ by Giampietrino (c. 1495-1540), now in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan (loc. cit., pp. 133-136).