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Saint James the Greater in the Battle of Clavijo Juan Carreño de Miranda

Artist

Juan Carreño de Miranda Avilés (Asturias), 1614 – Madrid, 1685

Culture Spanish
Date 1660
Object type painting
Medium, technique oil on canvas
Dimensions

231 × 168 cm

Inventory number 5848
Collection Old Master Paintings
On view Museum of Fine Arts, First Floor, European Art 1600–1700 and British Painting 1600–1800, Gallery VIII

This theme so popular in Spanish art has already been tackled in connection with Tiepolo’s work. This rendition painted by the Madrid court painter is about a century earlier. The saint, with his ghostly black mantle and blurred features, riding a rearing white horse, appears to be an apparition. While the two Saracens trampled on the ground are painted with certain plasticity, the figure of the apostle who has risen from the dead is made translucently ethereal by the application of the flowing, glazed paint. The horse’s mane, the red belt, the flag and the white shroud are all details which swirl around weightlessly. The master obviously shows a debt to the colours and forms of the Flemish Rubens and Van Dyck.

Vilmos Tátrai

References

Pigler, Andor, Katalog der Galerie Alter Meister, 1-2. Museum der Bildenden Künste, Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest. 2, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1967, p. 128-129.

Nyerges, Éva, Spanish Paintings, A Szépművészeti Múzeum gyűjteményei/The Collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, 2008, p. 134-135, no. 60.

This record is subject to revision due to ongoing research.

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