Page 41 - The mystery of faith

N o complete paint analysis has yet been undertaken of Mena’s perfectly preserved polychromy that
survives on this sculpture. The primer layer was probably composed of lead white, with some red
lead, some charcoal black, and earth. On top of this primer layer, a pigment made from the same
materials mixed with some sort of copper-based blue pigment would have been used to paint the veins
and shadows of the hands and some parts of the face (Fig. 3c). Other toning layers of pigment adding
vermilion or red lake would be also applied, giving a rosy bloom to the cheeks or the knuckles of the
hands, and toes. In other areas muddier tonal layers involving additional ochre, charcoal black, umber
or earth might be applied to articulate the fingernails and the saint’s realistically dusty lower legs and
feet in their simple leather and wood sandals.

The face was delicately painted with several gradations of these vermilion-enhanced tones in the cheeks,
brow, eyelids, the Cupid’s bow and full lower lip of the mouth and even the earlobes. The eyes were
painted in several layers of pure opaque white, brown and ochre tones to produce hazel eyes fringed
with meticulously painted lashes, and then varnished with one or several layers of what was probably
an egg varnish to give them the glossiest surface possible (Fig. 3d).7 Finally, all the areas with
encarnadura would have been varnished according to one of several formulas recommended by
Pacheco.8 The most common type was made of linseed oil, cooked with garlic cloves and powdered
juniper resin (sandaraca). Another more refined recipe called for oil of lavender. Generally, juniper,
pine, or mastic resins were powdered, mixed with the lavender oil, and combined with linseed or even
frog oil. Turpentine and brandy might also be added.9

ANDREA GATES

1 This essay is deeply indebted to and in part modelled on encarnaciones mates, see N. KHANDEKAR and M. SCHILLING,
the technical essay written by D. BARBOUR and J. OZONE, ‘A Technical Examination of a Seventeenth-Century
‘The Making of a Seventeenth-Century Spanish Polychrome Polychrome Sculpture of St. Gines de la Jara by Luisa
Sculpture’, in The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Roldán’, in Studies in Conservation, vol. XLVI, no. 1
Sculpture, 1600–1700, exhibition catalogue, National (2001), pp. 28–30.
Gallery, London 2009, pp. 59–71. 6 Ibid., p. 25.
2 Additionally, since Benito de Palermo was not beatified 7 PACHECO, El arte de la pintura cit., vol. II, chap. 7, pp.
until 1743, there would have been no established models for 113–121.
his iconography. 8 Ibid., pp. 118–120.
3 See S. Stratton, ‘A Peculiar Style of Sculpture’, p. 17. 9 For an excellent step-by-step analysis of the mixing and
4 F. PACHECO, El arte de la pintura, fac. ed., trans. Jorge application of the various gessoes, glues and varnishes that
Olvera, 2 vols, Instituto de Valencia de Don Juan, Madrid were used in the making of Spanish polychrome sculpture,
1956, vol. II, chap. 6, pp. 99–112. see G. FRASER GIFFORDS, ‘Spanish Colonial Polychrome
5 For an extensive practical analysis of Pacheco’s guidelines Statuary: Replicating the Lions of San Xavier del Bac’, in
for the creation of encarnaciones de polimento and APT Bulletin, vol. XXII, no. 3 (1990), pp. 19–29.

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