Page 99 - The mystery of faith

half-length sculpture achieves a higher degree of realism and retains a naturalism of expression that
more effectively communicates Christ’s suffering, specifically in the impression of a somewhat arrested,
but immediate eye contact that de Mena captures in Christ’s gaze.

The fourth sculpture of Ecce Homo with a red mantle over the shoulders is conserved in the Convent
of Don Juan de Alarcón and was published by Ricardo de Orueta in his monograph on the artist.
Almost immediately thereafter, de Orueta published an article in the guide to the museum that
expanded on his book and added to the artist’s corpus of works, several sculptures that were located
after the publication of his monograph.7 The Malaga work, signed and dated 1673, can be considered
the closest precedent to the present work in terms of the artist’s treatment of expression, the pose of the
arms and although it does not depict it tied at the chest, the arrangement of the mantle.

The simplified technique in the beard and the tenure of expression mark the present work as a product
of de Mena’s late period, during his final years between 1680 and 1688, when his student Miguel de
Zayas was working alongside de Mena in his Malaga workshop. Other works that date to this period
include the Ecce Homo with the red mantle in the Museo Nacional de Escultura and the Cathedral
Museum in Valladolid, the Ecce Homo in the Convent of the Concepcionistas, Zamora (Fig. 2).8

ACQUIRED BY THE MUSEO NACIONAL DE SAN GREGORIO,VALLADOLLID.

1 L. GILA MEDINA, Pedro de Mena, escultor 1628–1688, 6 E. OROZCO DÍAZ, ‘Un Ecce Homo desconocido de Pedro de
colección Ars Hispánica, Arcos Libros, Madrid 2007, pp. Mena y la interpretación de este tema en la escultura
172–197. granadina’, in Goya, no. 71, 1966, pp. 292–299.

2 J. LUIS ROMERO TORRES, ‘El artista, el cliente y la obra de 7 R. ORUETA Y DUARTE, La vida y la obra de Pedro de Mena
arte’, in Pedro de Mena. III centenario de su muerte, y Medrano, Centro de Estudios Históricos, Madrid 1914;
1688–1988, exhibition catalogue, Consejería de Cultura de ID., ‘La vida y la obra de Pedro de Mena y Medrano’, in
la Junta de Andalucía, Malaga 1989, pp. 97–114. Museum, 1915, vol. IV, pp. 141–142.

3 R. ALONSO MORAL, ‘Pedro de Mena, Ecce Homo’, in 8 J. RAMÓN NIETO GONZÁLEZ, ‘Ecce Homo, Dolorosa, Pedro
Antigüedad y Excelencias, exhibition catalogue, Consejería de Mena’; E. GARCÍA DE WATTEMBERG, ‘Ecce Homo, Pedro
de Cultura de la Junta de Andalucía, Seville 2007, p. 370. de Mena, atribución’; and L. LUNA MORENO, ‘Ecce Homo,
taller de Pedro de Mena’, all included in Pedro de Mena y
4 J. LUIS ROMERO TORRES and A. TORREJÓN DÍAZ, Roldana, Castilla, exhibition catalogue, Ministerio de Cultura,
exhibition catalogue, Consejería de Cultura de la Junta de Valladolid 1989, pp. 36–38, 40–41, 44–45. See also R.
Andalucía, Seville 2007, pp. 166 and 176. FERNÁNDEZ GONZÁLEZ, ‘Ecce Homo, taller de Pedro de
Mena’, in Museo Nacional de Escultura. La realidad
5 María Elena Gómez-Moreno does not consider this last barroca, exhibition catalogue, Valladolid 2005, pp. 38–39.
example to be autograph - see M. ELENA GÓMEZ-MORENO,
‘Pedro de Mena y los temas iconográficos’, in Pedro de
Mena. III centenario de su muerte, 1688–1988, exhibition
catalogue, Consejería de Cultura de la Junta de Andalucía,
Malaga 1989, p. 91.

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