Page 120 - The mystery of faith

Madrid, particularly with regard to the pose and arrangement of the Apostles in the lower foreground.
Having said this, however, the almost Apollo-like figure of Christ standing in the River Jordan is
particularly beautiful, and shows a plasticity of modelling that strongly reflects the influence of ancient
Roman sculpture.

The third well-known example of this subject is a canvas (1633) painted by the Flemish artist Pablo
Legot (1607–1637) for the main altarpiece in the Baroque Church of the Colegial del Salvador in
Seville,7 designed by the architect Miguel de Zumárraga, and constructed by the ensemblador–escultor
Juan de Oviedo with his sculptures polychromed by Legot (1607–1637). The fourth example is a relief
carved between 1641 and 1644 by Juan Martínez Montañés for the central section of the main
altarpiece in the parish church of San Miguel de Jerez of the Border in Cadiz.8 Finally, the fifth example
is the later series of large reliefs carved between 1770 and 1778 by the ensemblador–escultor Cayetano

de Acosta for the altarpiece of the Church of the Colegial del
Salvador in Seville.9

To these documented works, of which only three survive (the
works by Legot, Montañés and Acosta), we can add the
present exhibited relief by Adán, a sculptor who was active
in Seville during the late sixteenth century through the early
seventeenth century. We may support this attribution by
comparing the formal and stylistic characteristics of this
relief with another relief by the artist depicting the Baptism
of Christ that formed part of the altarpiece belonging to the
Convent of Las Dueñas and which is now in the Seville
Museum (Fig. 4).

Raphael’s famous canvas of the Transfiguration (1516) and
Federico Barocci’s composition of Christ’s Entombment (c.
1581) were both well known to later artists through
engravings,10 and were primary sources of inspiration for
Mannerist and Baroque artists in creating compositions of
this subject. In both paintings, the figure of Christ is
dynamically suspended in mid-air, his mantle fluttering
around him. However, neither of these works appears to
have influenced Adán in the execution of this relief. There
are two accounts of Christ appearing amidst clouds in the
New Testament – the Transfiguration and his Ascension up
to Heaven, There are also testimonies of saintly visions,
outside of the holy writ, but in most cases Christ is described
in the active beatific pose codified by Rafael in the Vatican
painting, which is the model specifically adopted by Legot in

Fig. 4

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