Page 149 - The mystery of faith

An attribution of the works to Francisco Dionisio de Ribas can be excluded, as we really only know
him to be an architect of altarpieces, not a sculptor, and, moreover, that he contracted other sculptors
to produce work for his retablos. Given that these works display many of the main formal
characteristics that derive directly from the work of José de Arce, and yet lack the monumentality that
typifies his actual work, we can therefore place these sculptures within the production of his followers
and date them to the late 1640s when Felipe de Ribas and Pedro Roldán were active in Seville. Known
works by Roldán during this initial period of his in Seville are too scarce for us to form a clear idea of
his nascent style. But we do know that both artists filtered the styles of their respective masters through
the prism of José de Arce. Our understanding of this stylistic synthesis in Andalusian sculpture is closely
associated with known late works by Felipe de Ribas that were produced during the 1640s, which is
precisely the period to which we would date these two sculptures.

1 With the exception of Remesal who died prematurely. See fig. 244. In the photographic reproduction she erroneously
J. LUIS ROMERO TORRES, ‘La escultura barroca sevillana y su states that the sculpture was from Alameda (Malaga).
relación con otros focos artísticos’, in Teatro de Grandezas,
exhibition catalogue, Regional Ministry of Culture of 5 M. TERESA DABRIO GONZÁLEZ, Los Ribas, un taller
Andalusia, Seville 1927, p. 73. andaluz de escultura del siglo XVII, Monte de Piedad,
Cordoba 1985, p. 480.
2 J. LUIS ROMERO TORRES, ‘Alonso Cano en el context de la
escultura sevillana (1634–1638)’, in Actas del Symposium 6 A. TORREJÓN DÍAZ, ‘Círculo de José de Arce. Niño Jesús’,
Internacional Alonso Cano y su época, University and in Teatro de Grandezas, exhibition catalogue, Seville 2007,
Regional Government of Andalusia, Granada 2002, pp. pp. 258–259.
751–761.
7 A suggestion made by Torrejón Díaz.
3 A. MARÍN FIDALGO, ‘Atribuido al círculo de los Ribas.
Niño Jesús, San Juan Bautista Niño’, in Sevilla en el siglo 8 However, some scholars, including Antonio Torrejón Díaz,
XVII, Ministry of Culture, Seville 1983, pp. 196–197. now believe these works to be by an artist in the circle of
José de Arce, possibly the sculptor Alfonso Martínez.
4 R. CAMACHO ET AL., Inventario artístico de Málaga y su
provincia, Ministry of Culture, Madrid 1985, vol. II, p. 146, 9 A. PALOMINO DE CASTRO Y VELASCO, El Parnaso español,
pintoresco laureado, Madrid 1724 (re-ed. 1947), p. 1080.

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