Plus Ultra: Art from the Hispanic Kingdoms in the Arocena Collection

A Valencian Altarpiece
In the XIV century, Juan Ruiz, the Archpriest of Hita, wrote his Book of Good Love in which he narrated Mary’s seven joys– the Annunciation, the Nativity of Jesus, the Adoration of the Magi, the Resurrection of Christ, the Ascension of Christ to Heaven, the Pentecost and the Coronation of the Virgin-, passages that form the structure of many Spanish altarpieces. The topic, introduced in Valencia by the painter Pere Nicolau in 1401, was very popular in the entire territory of the Crown of Aragon during the XV century. As a crossroads between the Italian and Iberian Peninsulas, Valencia gave rise to artwork that brought back to life the influence of Florentine painting, especially that done by Giotto, and it was merged with local preferences.

The Arrival of the flemish taste
The trip made by the Valencian Lluís Dalmau to Flanders in 1431 brought about a taste for Flemish elements in Aragonese art. This Calvary exemplifies a moment of transition between international gothic and northern styles: the faces become more expressive; the golden backgrounds were substituted by a rich natural landscape and the compositions, previously very simple, became multitudinous. The great number of people increases the dramatic sense of the scene, which is complemented by two angels flanking the figure of Jesus Christ.

An unknown painter
Cosme and Damian are known as the physician saints and they can be easily recognized by the box of ointment that is held in their hands as their symbol. In the III century, both physicians disseminated Christianity by providing free medical attention.

The Maestro de Perea was given that name since there were no documents to reveal his real name. He was an artist essential to the understanding development of the Spanish Flemish style found in the territory of the Crown of Aragon. Gothic, Flemish and Italian elements are fused in Saint Cosme, as can be observed in this painting. With this mixture of styles, an artistic movement is created that stands out due to the ornamentation present in the brocade of the clothing, as well as in the repoussé found in the background of the work.

Altarpieces in Spain
Since the XV century, the use of altarpieces was of special importance in Spain as a medium that used images to disseminate didactic stories.
This combination brings an uncommon topic to life: the extended family of Jesus. The main tableau shows the legend of Saint Anne’s three husbands, the last of whom was Joachim, with whom she conceived the Virgin Mary. From her previous marriages, she had two daughters: Mary of Clophas and Mary Salomae, who appear with their families in the lateral tableaux of this altarpiece. Five of Jesus’ disciples are part of this lineage.

Calahorra Saints
The iconography of the fragments of this altarpiece allows us to identify its origin and estimate its age. In the first one, the saints indicate their origin, since they were Roman martyrs who died in the city of Calahorra, on the border between Navarre, Aragon and Castile, where devotion was widespread.

The plague that battered Aragon in 1497 and 1507 made the veneration of a patron saint that cured diseases popular in that zone: Saint Roch. According to the legend, he fell ill with the plague and was cured by a dog named Melampo, who appears with him on the altarpiece.

Saint Sebastian
This saint was one of the first martyrs of Christianity. He was a Roman soldier condemned to death for defending his faith. As punishment, in the III century, the Diocletian emperor ordered him to be killed by archers. Although he did not die in that manner, beginning in the XV century, he was generally characterized as suffering that torture.
Sebastian is one of the saints most painted in the history of art since his image offers artists an opportunity to demonstrate their ability to paint his nude male body.

The holes found on the reverse side of this work indicate a possible linkage to a tree trunk that, together with the martyr’s arrows, would have completed the scene.

Saint Peter's Regret
Although there is no evidence in the Gospel concerning the presence of Saint Peter in the flagellation of Jesus Christ, this iconographic episode has been very popular in the territory of the Spanish Crown since the XVI century. This is founded in the environment of the Counter Reformation when the Catholic Church defended the sacraments against Protestant attacks against them, especially the sacrament of confession. Thus, the image of Saint Peter’s Regret for having denied Christ became popular as a simile for suffering sinners who go to their confessor to redeem their sins. The scene presents the importance of art as a didactic tool for the dissemination of the Catholic Church’s ideas.

Saint Quentin Martyr
Saint Quentin was a Roman martyr who was tortured in different manners: he was tied to a rack with two long nails crossing his body and ten tacks under his fingernails. This cruel scene is represented in an environment that presents XVI century Spain: slashed doublets, skirts and headpieces that were the fashion of the time.

Saint Luis de Tolosa
Luis de Tolosa, second son of King Charles II of Naples and Sicily, was in line for succession to the throne. During battles of that kingdom with the Crown of Aragon, he was made prisoner on the Iberian Peninsula, where he maintained contact with the Franciscan Order. After returning to Italy, and upon the death of his older brother, he was postulated as heir, but his religiosity caused him to abdicate to his younger brother when he took his Franciscan vows. Testimony of that rejection is the crown and scepter found at his feet.

Mechelen "dolls"
This sculpture produced in Flanders from 1475 to 1530 is recognizable due to its stereotypic form: round face, heavy eyelids and small eyes, abundant and clean curls. Clothing falls heavily into angled folds. One of the main centers for the production of these sculptures was the City of Mechelen, where “dolls” were produced, small sculptures out of walnut, oak or poplar, rich polychrome sculptures used for home altars. These models even reached America and became the focus of new cults, including Our Lady of the Conquest, in Puebla. Its survival is notable, since the successive waves of protestant iconoclasts destroyed a great number of them.

A Family Portrait
The individuals in the painting lived in the Flemish city of Ghant, in the southern Lower Countries, part of the Spanish Empire. They wore black clothing, highly valued in a region that produced dyed woolen cloth. Jean-Baptiste was part of the Flemish Council; the letter he holds in his hand proves his royal ties. His wife, Marie-Anne Nieulant, born in 1625 and married in 1653, is accompanied by their son, Jean-Baptiste, who wears a hat with a turned-down brim with a quilted front band that was used to protect the heads of children who were beginning to walk.

Un santo conquistador

Santiago el Mayor suele representarse de diferentes maneras, las más comunes son como apóstol, como peregrino o como caballero defensor de la religión. La leyenda piadosa del siglo XII narra que, montado en su corcel blanco y portando armadura, animó y auxilió al ejército de Ramiro I en su victoria frente al ejército musulmán. Históricamente, la construcción, representación y funcionalidad de Santiago como símbolo coincidieron con los objetivos políticos y religiosos del imperio español. Al irrumpir su ejército en América, la figura de Santiago Matamoros fue sustituido por Santiago Mataindios, continuando así con su patronazgo como adalid contra los infieles, como una extensión espacial y temporal de la reconquista peninsular.

Esta escultura de procesión, es decir, destinada a llevarse en andas, debió blandir una espada y portar algún estandarte. De esta manera, pudo haber sido llevada como símbolo religioso y militar en las campañas de expansión hacia la región norte de la Nueva España, y presenciar la ocupación en alguno de los espacios geográficos que recibieron los nombres de Nueva Vizcaya, el Nuevo Reino de León, la Nueva Extremadura y Nuevo Santander. Estas regiones, en su conjunto, corresponden a los actuales estados mexicanos de Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, Coahuila, Durango, Chihuahua y Sinaloa; además del estado de Texas en los Estados Unidos de América.

The Burial of Christ
Christ is accompanied by John the Apostle and the women of Galilee, among who are found his mother, Mary, who holds his body, and Mary Magdalene, who kisses his hand. Miguel Cabrera represented this passage from Passion to the inside of a stone tomb with a view of the landscape at the background. Due to the topic and lobe-shaped form, this painting must have been part of a full iconographic representation of the life of Christ, in which other episodes of passion are included and which are mainly narrated in the Gospels of Luke and John.

Silverwork in New Spain
The exploitation and profit from silver mines in New Spain were strategically important to support the Spanish Empire. In 1527, the first silver supervisors or inspectors began working in Mexico City and ten years later the first orders (ordenanzas) were issued for the organization of the silver-makers guild. As a good for exchange and for consumption, silver-making was subject to strict rules of the control under the law of precious metals and for payment of the tax known as the “royal fifth”, or a 20 per cent tax.

Between Guatemala and Philippines
The Virgin embraces the lifeless body of Christ on her lap after removing him down from the cross. Her face fully reflects the drama of the Passion with the same realism as the disarranged position of her son. A XVII century Christian artistic practice was to foster devotion by representing scenes related to Mary’s seven sorrows or anguishes. The preference for local wood and ivory imported from the Philippines, in the rough or carved, is a characteristic of this sculpture, possibly Guatemalan, and which, due to its dimensions was probably used in a domestic environment.

Lord of Esquipulas
At the feet of the Crucified Christ, the Virgin Mary and John the Apostle create the scene known as the Calvary. This painting represents a vera efigie, a “living scene” of the sculptural group in carved and polychrome wood, done at the end of the XVI century by the recognized sculptural school in Santiago de Guatemala for the Sanctuary of Esquipulas, a municipality located in the today’s Department of Chiquimula in Guatemala. The model refers to the black Christ with three nails, long hair and a pointed beard, with his head inclined on his chest and his eyes closed. The cross has a spiral profile, covered with the shoots of grapevines, as a symbol of the Eucharist.

Ecce Homo
The iconography of this image of Christ crowned by thorns corresponds to the passage from the Passion narrated in the Gospel of John. After having been lashed, Christ is presented by Pontius Pilate to the crowd with the phrase “Behold the man”. This expression is conserved in Latin as Ecce Homo, as a reminder of the real human and divine condition of the Son of God. Pictorially, the front view of the face, the narrow framing of the head surrounded by the three powers and the greenish and translucent flesh tones correspond to the Flemish model created by the Dutch painter, Dirk Bouts (1420-1475).

Man of Sorrows
Christ wears a crown of thorns, drops of blood flow down his forehead and they mix with the tears running down his cheeks. With his hands tied, on his right palm there is a wound from the Crucifixion. It is an image that synthesizes the pain of the Passion and not the narration of a particular episode. The inscription in Latin on the halo is translated as “look and see if there is any pain like my pain”, taken from the Book of Lamentations. Under the Flemish influence, the background in gold leaf materialized the presence of the divine, representing celestial time and space.

A Marriage Portrait
These people, distinguished members of high society, wear a headdress and a hat, black garments, gold chains and starched collars with frills according to the etiquette of the Spanish court. The inscription in Latin that is translated as “in the year of their age” is proof that they are twenty three years old and that the paintings were done in 1578. The composition, with only three-quarters of the head and the expressive dignity of the faces is related to the Italian tradition that included painters such as the one born in Utrecht, Antonio Moro (1516/1521-1576), who painted members of the aristocracy and European nobility.

A Divided Empire
This person, who was proud of himself, was probably a distinguished citizen who belonged to the rising bourgeois class in a city such as Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Delft or Haarlem. By 1648, with the separation of the Spanish Empire from these provinces, Protestantism gained strength in detriment of the power of the Catholic Church among residents of the region of Flanders at that time. This, together with the relative modesty of the Orange Court created a market in which artists stopped working exclusively under official commission. The austerity and sober dignity derived from Protestant taste was then considered to be important virtues to be emphasized in the portrait.

Allegory to sculpture
The young woman with tools of the trade as a sculptor seems to suspend the blow of the mallet on the chisel to attract the spectator’s attention. As a symbol of beauty, a sculpted head in marble inspired by classical Ancient times is what he is sculpting. It is a painting on the art of sculpture, an allegory that seeks to represent a concept using the human figure and, as such, it could form part of an iconological program on the arts. In addition to the allegorical content, it is a portrait, since the author selected a common person as a model, giving the painting great naturalness and realism.

Adoration of Saint Peter
In the classical world, the “Adoration” refers to granting the dignity of gods to heroes. In Christianity, the term represents the glorification of a person by the community. In this work, divine manifestation is expressed with very subtle characteristics: the presence of angels, keys and the exact posture of Saint Peter, who is a common man. Naturalism is a characteristic trait of XVII century Spanish Baroque art. It is proximity of that which is human and the eloquence of images from daily life. Artists used people from their environment as models, exactly as the painter Diego Velázquez did in Seville.

"Little Saint John"
John the Baptist is usually represented in Christian art as an ascetic adult: with camel skin clothing, barefoot and with long hair. Here he is portrayed as a young child, as a “child Saint John” or “Little Saint John”. He can be recognized by the lamb he holds in his arms, a symbol that foreshadows Christ’s sacrifice. This small sculpture is similar to that of Andalusia manner, characterized by an aspect of grace and charm.

"Petaca"
“Petaca” (trunk) comes petlacalli, a Nahuatl word meaning “chest made of cane” and it describes travel trunks with a rigid structure woven out of reeds and covered with leather that were widely used during the XVII and XVIII centuries in New Spain for the transportation of travelers’ belongings and for goods imported and shipped on the Atlantic and trans-Pacific routes. This “petaca” is decorated with a “piteado” technique which means that leather is embroidered with maguey fiber, a technique that originated in pre-Colombian times. The central decorative element is a two-headed eagle, the emblem of the Spanish Empire governed by the Hapsburgs.

Plates from the India Company
The India Companies were enterprises that managed trade between the European cities – in this case Spanish cites – and their colonies. The export of porcelain was done by these European maritime companies. The porcelain pieces that were not fully decorated were found in warehouses in Canton so that the initials or emblems of future owners could be added when custom-ordered. The designs combined western images inspired in gild along with Chinese decorative figures to satisfy European and American taste. An ornamental characteristic is the use of a gold border or edging known as a “spearhead” which found in this piece and floral motifs are defined on the base.