Saint Matthew

Saint Matthew was the fellow evangelist of Mark, Luke and John, who are customarily portrayed writing, with the tools of their trade, a book, an inkwell and a pen. Additionally, each of the four has a personal attribute, stemming from Ezekiel’s Tetramorph. Thus, Matthew is identified with the child or the angel who accompanied him, when beginning the account of Christ’s genealogy. In this work, Saint Matthew is seated with the book on his lap and the angel at his back, who is holding the inkwell with the pen in his right hand and pointing with his other to what he sees in the background —i.e. a tree with some figures in its branches. This is the 'tree of Jesse’ here crowned by the Virgin Mary with the Christ child in Her arms, alluding to Christ’s genealogy. Since the Middle Ages, Christ has been linked with the tree of Jesse, betokening his kinship with the said royal family to which his parents belonged, as narrated by Matthew. This piece belongs to a series of plates portraying the evangelists which was executed in the third or fourth decade of the XVII1:11 century by Baltasar de Echave Ibía. Three of these, those portraying Saint John and Saint Luke and the present one, form part of the MUNAL’s collection, while the one portraying Saint Mark remains in the Querétaro Regional Museum. This work passed to the MUNAL from the San Diego Viceregal Painting Gallery in the year 2000.