Page 160 - The mystery of faith

FRANCISCO ANTONIO RUIZ GIJÓN

(Utrera 1653 – 1720 Seville?)

15. The Infant Baptist

c. 1680 – 1690
Wood, polychromed, with glass eyes

46 cm (approx. 18 in.)
PROVENANCE: Private Collection, Córdoba

T his exquisite medium-sized statue depicts Saint John the Baptist as a small child, standing
upon a rocky outcrop, the weight focused on the right leg, the left leg slightly elevated.
Bearing a cross in the left hand, the right points to the small lamb standing at the saint’s feet.
Draped in a camel skin, according to tradition, the figure exhibits a chubby plumpness,
typical of figures of putti or cherubs. The face is articulated with sweetly childlike features, including
slightly parted lips, pink cheeks and wide almond-shaped eyes inset with glass and fringed with painted
lashes. The somewhat oblong shape of the head with its rounded cheeks and high forehead is all framed
by the hairstyle that is expressively arranged in short, choppy, windswept waves that, like the
contrapposto pose, add an element of energy and dynamism to the composition. The polychromy in the
encarnaciones combines ivory and flesh-pink tones and is very well preserved, as are the brown, ochre
and ivory tones of the camel skin, which is decorated all over in a delicate foliate pattern of grapes and
leaves incised to reveal the dark gold leaf beneath.

Even at first glance the work is clearly a product of the peak of the Andalusian Baroque in Seville. In
pose, style and physiognomy it reflects the overwhelming Roldanesque aesthetic that permeates the
entire second half of the seventeenth century. However, certain formal and stylistic features remain
distinct and, indeed, point towards the attribution to Gijón.

Continued research into the work and career of Gijón has currently shed some light on certain aspects of
this artist’s turbulent and eventful biography.1 In the process new works of a high degree of quality have
come to light that can be connected to known contractual documents relating to projects for the Sevillian
confraternities. Gijón was a sculptor of his time and produced for these devotional orders small- to
medium-sized works, such as the present example which wosintended for private contemplation. He was
also one of the most successful sculptors working in the city to produce sacred processional images and
the often elaborately sculpted litters upon which they were displayed in the Holy Week pasos.

The Sevillian religious confraternities provided Baroque artists with some of their most influential and
lucrative patronage and the various works by Gijón that survive from projects commissioned by these
sororities and fraternities provide us with chronological milestones for his development of style and
iconography. Teodoro Falcón Márquez has determined the artist’s first known infant figure to be the
Christ Child in the Saint Joseph with the Child (Fig. 1) in the Church of Saint Nicholas in Seville, which

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