Page 248 - The mystery of faith

Folch de Cardona for the Sant Vicenç de Cardona Church
(1667–1668). He is also responsible for the precious
alabaster ‘grotto’ altarpiece at San Ignacio de Manresa
(1671). Francesc, in collaboration with his master
Domènec Rovira, was responsible for making the
sepulchres of Sant Oleguer in the Cathedral of Barcelona
(1678) and for the two tombs belonging to Canon Diego
Girón de Rebolledo and his brothers in the Capilla de la
Concepción in Tarragona (1678–1679). Francesc and
Domènec also collaborated on one of the most ambitious
noble commissions of the period in Catalonia: the building,
in the presbytery area, of the monastic church of Santa
María de Poblet. The church was commissioned by Lluís
Ramon Folch (duke of Cardona) and his brother Pedro
Antonio de Aragón, together with the so-called ‘sepulchral
chambers’ (1659–1665); the sepulchre of Ramon Folch de
Cardona, known as ‘Prohom Vinculador’ (1667); the
Fig. 1 alabaster reliquary altarpieces (1668) to flank the
Renaissance main altarpiece by Damià Forment; and,
finally, the sepulchres of King Alfonso the Magnanimous
and the Infante Enrique, first Duke of Sogorbe (1671).1

The present work is clearly an element of a larger
architectural grouping and it is possible that its original
context may have been within one of these important
commissions for and at Santa María de Poblet. The shield
relief depicts a veiled female head, turned three-quarters to
the left, with a melancholic and suffering expression. The
work shares close similarities above all to the heads of the
caryatides in the ‘sepulchral chambers’, and particularly in
the facial expressions of two examples, the Head of a Man
Crowned with Laurels and the Head of a Woman Wearing
a Pearl Necklace, both of which are conserved in the
Museu del Monestir at Poblet (Figs. 1, 2). The present
work, which was possibly carved as an element of a
funerary monument, also exhibits similarities to the heads
of the music-making angels incorporated into the main
altarpiece at Santa María de Poblet, which originally were
part of the reliquary altarpiece that formerly flanked it. It
is also reminiscent of the plaques carved with male busts
that decorate the ‘Prohom Vinculador’ tomb.

Fig. 2

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