The Baptism of Christ

This idiosyncratic painting was first recognised as the work of Pedro Machuca by Pierluigi Leone de Castris in 1985 (Giusti and Leone de Castris, 'Forastieri e regnicoli', 1985, loc. cit.), after historically bearing associations with a number of artists, including two disciples of Raphael, Andrea Sabatini (see Provenance) and Pellegrino da Modena (tentatively proposed by Federico Zeri in 1952).

Machuca’s eclectic style has proved complex to trace as nothing of his early life is known, although his period working in Italy has brought some clarity. Machuca’s only dated painting, The Virgin and the Souls of Purgatory (1517) was painted in Italy (Museo del Prado, Madrid; inv. no. P002579), and has provided a foundation on which to build a corpus of his work. It has been suggested that he was likely associated with Raphael’s workshop, first in the church of Santa Maria della Pace and later in the Vatican Logge (ibid., pp. 36-7). He has been identified as the ‘Petro Spagnuolo’ (‘Spanish Peter’) mentioned in a letter of 1515 by Michelangelo, leading scholars to believe that Machuca worked on a number of decorative projects with Michelangelo in 1515 and 1516 (Giusti and Leone de Castris, Pittura del Cinquecento a Napoli, 1988, p. 36); the present work does somewhat echo the muscular, fixed figures in Michelangelo's Sistine frescoes.

The Portuguese painter, architect and humanist Francisco de Holanda (1517-1585) went so far as to rank Machuca alongside Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael in his Da pintura antigua (1548), naming him as one of the four águilas (‘eagles’) of the Spanish Renaissance – together with Bartolomé Ordóñez, Diego de Siloe and Alonso Berruguete – for having introduced the Renaissance style to Spain. Although many of Michelangelo and Raphael’s artistic inventions made their way indirectly to Spain through in the form of engravings, Machuca is one of the few artists to have had direct contact with both of these Renaissance giants.

Paintings by Machuca are extremely rare, especially those painted during the time he spent in Italy. Leone de Castris placed this painting amongst the artist’s last Roman works, datable to about 1518 or 1519 (Giusti and Leone de Castris, 'Forastieri e regnicoli', 1985, loc. cit.). Most recently, Anna Bisceglia (loc. cit.) has drawn stylistic comparisons with Machuca’s Holy Family at the Galleria Borghese, Rome (inv. no. 174), which is dated to circa 1516-17. Machuca’s transformative journey to Italy was short but intense; in 1520 he returned to Spain, settling in Granada where he worked on paintings for the Royal Chapel at Granada Cathedral.