Page 234 - The mystery of faith

FRAY EUGENIO GUTIÉRREZ DE TORICES

(Madrid fl. 1653 – d.1709)

25. Tota Pulcra

Coloured wax relief on wood
35.3 x 28.9 cm (14 x 11 ? in.)
Signed and dated upon a label, lower right: Fr. Eugeo ft. 1690
PROVENANCE: Gonzalo Mora Collection

A ccording to Ceán Bermúdez,1 who based his biography of the artist largely on those written
by Álvarez Baena and Palomino, Eugenio Gutiérrez de Torices was born in Madrid and
entered the Monastery of La Merced in 1653. Apparently, he also subsequently spent some
considerable time at the Spanish court in Madrid, where documents attest not only to his
abilities as an artist, but also that his work found praise with the Bolognese painters, Angelo Michele
Colonna and Agostino Mitelli, who, between 1658 and 1660, at the specific request of Philip IV,
produced fresco decorations for the royal chambers. It is thanks to these accounts that we also know
that Torices spent part of his life in the Monastery of the Virgen de la Merced in Segovia. He died in
the year 1709, and while Ceán Bermúdez, Baena and Palomino all agreed on the importance of Torices’s
artistic legacy, hardly any examples of his work remain, apart from an unsigned – and rather inferior –
Saint Jerome in the monastery at El Escorial. There is also an unsubstantiated account of a signed and
dated work in El Espinar, and a subsequent attribution of a beautiful Adoration of the Magi in the
rooms used by Isabel Clara in the Monastery of El Escorial. However, according to an unpublished
account made by the conservator Dr Almudena Pérez de Tudela, this latter work is very similar to an
Adoration of the Shepherds, now in the Palace of La Granja, which is signed by the well-known
Neapolitan sculptor Catarina de Julianis, (active 1695–1742).2 Another signed and dated work by
Torices that was formerly in one of the royal palaces (now moved) illustrates the founding of the
Mercedarian Order; it is similar to the description of an autograph work depicting the same subject in
the Descalzas Reales Convent, Valladolid, and may indeed be the same work (Fig. 1).3 These
Mercedarian works are indicative of the artist’s recognized style, in which the fine and delicate
craftsmanship of his figures is enhanced by the beauty of his landscapes. The latter work appears to
have been inspired directly by Dutch engravings, as illustrated in a relief by Torices incorporated into
one of two pieces of furniture in El Espinar (Fig. 2), which is a literal translation of a signed work by
the seventeenth-century Amsterdam engraver Anna Maria Koker.4

Bermúdez, Baena and Palomino also noted the strong sense of naturalism to be found in Torices’s work,
particularly in his realistic depictions of animals, citing the minute detail in the furniture of the piece in
the Oratory of San Pedro de Nolasco, and the detailed instruments played by the angels included in the
aforementioned Valladolid work. Another important aspect of his style is his approach to architecture,
which, when not derived from northern models, as in the El Espinar relief (Fig. 2), were possibly
inspired by contemporary buildings. One example is the palace depicted in another relief at El Espinar,

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