Saint Alexius

In this work, José Juárez depicts Saint Alexius on a pedestal, conferring a sculptural quality on him. On either side of the saint are various objects alluding to the worldly life full of riches, symbolized by a sword, coins, jewels and other luxurious items that the saint rejected during his days on earth. The back part of the composition is dominated by extraordinary architectural forms which serve to divide the inner space from the outer one. In both areas, the artist deployed, on successive planes, different scenes from the saints life. Alexius was born in Rome, and his father, a senator called Eufemianus, forced him to marry. However, having decided to remain chaste, he fled his house on the day of the wedding, sharing out his riches among the poor. He ended up in the city of Edessa in Syria, where he lived as a beggar for seventeen years. Later, he returned to the city of his birth and lived there for many years under the stairs of the house where he was born without being recognized by his family. Shortly before his death, he wrote a letter giving a detailed account of his penitent life. As he lay dying, Pope Innocent I was celebrating a mass, attended by Eufemianus, in a nearby church. Just then, a voice from heaven announced that Saint Alexius was dead, the bells of the city rang out, and the whole congregation came to witness the event, as can be seen in the left-hand part of the painting. They found the dead Alexius with the letter clenched in his stiffened fingers. This document could only be removed from the dead man’s grasp when the Pope blessed him and miraculously opened his hand, thus freeing the paper and revealing his identity. A church in honor of Saint Alexius was built on the site of his father's palace. This large-scale work was an object of Jesuit devotion, since Alexius was considered a paragon of the chaste life. It hung in the Casa Profesa (the headquarters of the Jesuit order in México), next to the painting of Saint Justus and Saint Pastor, also by José Juárez. This work passed to the MUNAL from the San Diego Viceregal Painting Gallery in the year 2000.