Christ Consoled by the Angels

A native of San Miguel el Grande in the State of Guanajuato, Juan Patricio Morlete was one of the outstanding mestizo painters of the second half of the XVIIIth century. He was an apprentice of José de Ibarra and belonged to the group of artists who founded the Academy of Painting in 1753. Together with Miguel Cabrera, José de Ibarra and other painters, in 1751 he examined the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe that is now venerated in the eponymous Basíli In this work, one can appreciate the artist’s fluent brushwork, which is typical of the XVIIIth century neo-Hispanic baroque style. The artist depicts the moment following the flagellation of Jesus. An archangel is holding up the fainting protagonist who, dressed only in a course woolen cloth, shows His bleeding back and has an agonized look on His face. Behind Him is a column alluding to the trial presided over by Pontius Pílate, who ordered Him to be whipped before being crucified. The dark, cloudy background and the shaft of light descending iron the upper left-hand corner highlight a group of angels who painstakingly mop up the sacred liquid and squeeze it into chalices; one of them is ready to put ointment on Christ's wounds. The quality of the smoothly blended colors, along with the warm tones of the grays and browns and the ochre-colored imprimaturas soften the dramatic brutality of the occasion, which is lamen ted by the tiny angels and cherubim in the upper part of the composition. This piece is signed in the lower right-hand comer by Joan PatrisM(or) Lete/Ruiz. It passed from the San Diego Viceregal Painting Gallery to the MUNAL in the year 2000.