Our oil on canvas depicting The Virgin and Child with Saint Christopher bears traces of the eclectic Spanish pictorial experience, particularly that of Seville, in the last quarter of the 17th century.
The iconography of the spindle, which well explains its etymological meaning as "he who carries Christ" (i.e. Baby Jesus) on his shoulders, has in fact been known above all in Iberian Baroque painting characterised by a strong style, of which the representation of Ribera, known as "lo Spagnoletto", has produced the highest results (Saint Christopher of the Prado in Madrid).
The tones of lyricism and tenebrism, deriving from the lesson of the well-known Caravaggio master, although still present, appear in our canvas tempered by a play of colours, in which light still plays a determining role, and by a childish and bucolic spirit, which permeates the painting of the Sevillian master Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.
If there is a school in the variegated Spanish background of the 17th century to which our painter's canvas can be ascribed, it is, with a wide margin of probability, the Sevillian one. In fact, various details contribute to suggesting this.
Among the works of St. Christopher in our painting, which betrays an eloquent reference to that of St. Joseph in the various versions of Murillo known as "Rest on the Flight into Egypt" (Genoa, Palazzo Bianco; , Institut of Art, Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts).
A way of seeing, it has never been so simple, insignificant, to insert Saint Christopher as an integral part of a three-part compositional scheme, generally reserved for the Holy Family, which marks a break with the traditional iconography of both Saint Christopher and the Holy Family, while still in full harmony with the technique, tones and choice of subjects of the great Murillo.
We are therefore in the presence of a canvas that can be a full title in language with the lesson of Murillo, genuine testimony in the midst of an artistic discourse in which Juan de Valdés Leal - the greatest Sevillian painter at the death of the master in 1682 - differs, unlike our painter, who will choose a different path from the imprint of Murillo to operate thematic choices all 'sign of the celebration of death enters the well-known paintings of the Sevillian Hospital de la Caridad ("finis gloriae mundi").
My painting, a signed canvas, undoubtedly attractive to collectors of Spanish painting from the "Siglo de Oro" and the entire seventeenth century, as well as a good piece of furniture that the dimensions (canvas 51 x 41, with frame 65 x 55) and the ease of placing the subject is of very pleasant use for domestic walls.
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