Page 265 - The mystery of faith

elegant combinations of gold over backgrounds that could be blue, red, green or brownish. Even if
colour was a personal choice of the artist, though to some degree it would surely have been based on
the commission, Salzillo evidently exercised his own license as a painter throughout this work both in
his translucent palette and in the application of subtle veils of colour, which were meant to vibrate in
the light of the chapel or private oratory where the work was originally installed.

1 J. SÁNCHEZ MORENO, Vida y obra de Francisco Salzillo: 6 On Salzillo’s working models, see C. BELDA NAVARRO, ‘Los
una escuela de escultura en Murcia, Murcia 1983, p. 139. bocetos de Salzillo y su significación en la escultura
barroca’, in Goya, Madrid, no. 136, 1977, pp. 226–233.
2 Ibid., p. 114.
7 C. DE LA PEÑA VELASCO and C. BELDA NAVARRO, Francisco
3 Francisco Salzillo (1707–1783), Exposición Antológica, Salzillo, artífice de su fortuna, Murcia 2007, pp. 28–31.
exhibition catalogue, Dirección General de Bellas Artes, Other references to Salzillo are also included on pages 228
Madrid 1973, cat. no 48. and 260.

4 A. BAQUERO ALMANSA, Los profesores de las Bellas Artes 8 C. BELDA NAVARRO, Francisco Salzillo y la orden
murcianas, Murcia 1913, p. 240. Other references to the dominicana en Murcia (an exhibition to mark the fifth
same work are cited on pages 212 and 229. centenary of the Dominican Monastery of Santa Ana),
Murcia 1990, pp. 101–102.
5 This Mediterranean Levantine representation of the
Dolorosa coined a new sculptural model for the subject that 9 In effect, the second part of the exhibition included a
later (c. 1755–1756) resulted in Salzillo’s abandoning the section called la vida robada al cielo in which visitors could
talla entera mode in favour of the vestir, which is why this follow in sequence the process used in making the sculptures
work is of great art historical value. We have already cited of Saint Barbara (Church of San Pedro); Saint Anthony (in
the Dolorosa made for the Brotherhood of Jesus in Murcia, the making of both a boceto, and a finished work); and the
a sculpture that replaced the former Soledad (esculta de Virgin of Angustias.
vestir). Between the years 1755 and 1756, Salzillo made
various sculptures for the matinal Good Friday procession, 10 M. C. SÁNCHEZ-ROJAS FENOLL, ‘El escultor Nicolás
including Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Veronica, Salzillo’, in Anales de la Universidad de Murcia, Murcia,
images that were to replace the old standards of the previous 1976–1977, XXXVI, 3–4, pp. 255–296. See also I. DI LIDDO,
century. For information on the vicissitudes of the ‘Una imagine comparata sul ruolo delle botteghe. Nicola
Brotherhood and the reasons its renovation was undertaken Salzillo’, in ID., La circolazione della scultura lignea barroca
by the Order’s major-domo, Joaquin Riquelme, see C. BELDA nel mediterraneo. Napoli, la Puglia e la Spagna, De Luca,
NAVARRO, Francisco Salzillo. La plenitud de la escultura, Rome 2008, pp. 287–281. This discussion also posits the
Murcia 1999 (1st ed.), pp. 142–144. After the success of this theory that, by extension, Nicolás Salzillo must have been
image Salzillo did not return to his model to make another influenced by his master Aniello Perrone.
life-size Dolorosa.

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