Saint Joseph and the Child

(Luisa Roldan)

LUISA ROLDÁN, CALLED ‘LA ROLDANA’
(Seville 1652 – 1706 Madrid)
17. Saint Joseph and the Child
Wood, polychromed
45 x 23 x 22 cm (17 ? x 9 x 8 ? in.)
PROVENANCE: Private Collection, Córdoba
The 2007 monographic exhibition in Seville entitled Roldana1 included a small sculpture
depicting Saint Joseph with the Child in gilded and polychromed wood (Fig. 1) that belonged
to the Clarite Convent of the Nativity in Antequera, outside Malaga. This magnificent work
dates from the final years of Luisa Roldán’s Madrid period, and as the exhibition was
arranged chronologically, appeared as the final sculpture in the museum’s display.
The exhibition also included another version of the same subject belonging to the Church of Saint
Anthony of Padua in Cadiz (Fig. 2). Despite later repaints in the 1960s this work had previously been
correctly attributed to La Roldana and her husband Luis Antonio de los Arcos and dated to their Cadiz
period (1687–1688).2 Recently, a third version has come to light in the Convent of Saint Anthony,
Granada,3 which, like the present work, is also small, but made of polychromed terracotta (Fig. 3).
These three works allow us to trace the evolution of La Roldana’s iconography, in which we can
recognize the progressive aging of Saint Joseph, who is depicted as middle-aged in the Cadiz and
Antequera versions, but elderly in the Granada version.4 What is also interesting is the fact that the
sculptures from Antequera and Granada both belong to her late Madrid period. To these three
examples we may now add a fourth: the small polychromed wooden sculpture exhibited here.
The subject of Saint Joseph, as the father and protector of Jesus, had special significance as a devotional
image in post-Council of Trent Spain. Formerly, images of Saint Joseph were incorporated into
compositions relating to Christ’s childhood, including the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi or
Shepherds, the Presentation in the Temple, the Circumcision, the Flight into Egypt, or the scenes set in
Joseph’s Nazerene workshop.5 Other than these subjects, images of Joseph were featured only in
representations of the Holy Family. However, the Catholic religious orders that sprang up in the second
half of the sixteenth century, particularly the more reformist ones, such as the Carmelites, helped to
spread Joseph’s cult, and even dedicated convents to the saint . Equally, several late sixteenth-century
texts exalted Joseph’s life and role in Christianity, such as the Sumario de las Excelencias del glorioso
San José Esposo de la Virgen María, written in 1597 by the Carmelite priest Jerónimo Gracián de la
Madre de Dios.6
In their drive to humanize Christ’s divinity, Spanish Baroque artists generally represented Saint Joseph
and the Child in one of two ways: either walking together hand-in-hand, or with the saint standing and carrying the infant Christ in his arms. Although La
Roldana adopted the first approach in the version
made for the Carmelites, it was the second mode that
proved to be more popular and was more frequently
depicted. Moreover, Andalusian sculptors employed
two variations for the pose of the Child when held by
the saint: one, in which the Child nestles in his father’s
arms, and the figures express a relaxed sense of filial
affection; and another less naturalistic arrangement in
which the saint appears to present the Child standing
upon his arm.
Once Saint Joseph became accepted as a specific
subject in Andalusian art, sculptors began to depict
him walking with the Child to illustrate his formative
role in the Saviour’s early life, and the iconography of
the two figures walking as father and son was
particularly fashionable during the early seventeenth
century. Juan de Mesa made several statues, like the
one in Fuentes de Andalucia (1615–1616); or the lost
work made three years later for Diego de Herrera,
which survives in description as: ‘A Saint Joseph with
the child Jesus, clasping his [son’s] hand and holding a
saw’;7 or even the version carved around 1620 for the
Carmelite Descalzes Convent of the Guardian Angel,
which Mesa based upon another version of the subject
in the order’s sister Convent of Nuestra Señora de los
Remedios. Yet another Saint Joseph and the Child by
Mesa belonged to the Carmelite Descalzes Convent of
Saint Teresa of Jesús in Seville (c.1609–1610).
Francisco Ocampo also sculpted two versions of the
subject – a high relief for the altarpiece of the Chapel
of the Virgin of Mercy in the Church of San Pedro in
Carmona (1617), and a sculpture in the round for the
parish church of Villamartín, outside Cadiz (1622).
During the late sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries the most important representations of Saint
Joseph and the Child were those painted by Domeniko
Theotokopoulos, El Greco, for the Chapel of San Jose
in Toledo, and, in terms of sculpture, the model for the subject created by Gregorio Fernández, and subsequently replicated by his pupils and followers. In the
first half of the seventeenth century, Andalusian artists began to depict Saint Joseph with the Child in
a variety of domestic contexts, or in the carpentry workshop. Later, by the mid 1600s, they developed
the iconography of the saint holding the Child in his arms. During the 1650s, the Sevillian sculptor
Alfonso Martínez, a disciple of the Flemish artist José de Arce, carved images for the altarpiece of the
Concepción Grande in Seville Cathedral, wherein he depicted Saint Joseph standing and holding the
Child in his arms. By the beginning of the 1660s Pedro Roldán had carved his interpretation of the
subject, which was to later serve as the model for his daughter’s iconic versions.
The Sevillian painter, sculptor and architect Alonso Cano has traditionally been credited with the
dissemination of this particular subject, based on his magnificent sculpture from the Convent of the
Guardian Angel in Granada, now in the Museo de Bellas Artes in Granada (Figs. 4a, b). However, the
primary source for a subject group comprised of an adult bearing an infant derives from antiquity,
specifically the sculpture of Hermes and the infant Dionysius by Praxiteles (Fig. 5),8 or, to a lesser
degree, those Roman representations of the infant Bacchus with Silenus.9 The sculpture by Cano was
originally part of a group that he carved in collaboration with his follower Pedro de Mena that included
three Franciscan saints of Spanish–Portuguese origin: San Antón of Padua, Saint Diego of Alcalá and
Saint Peter of Alcántara. The pose of the Portuguese Saint Anthony almost perfectly corresponds to that
of Cano’s Saint Joseph, both in terms of the saint’s pose and in the pose of the Child. The infant Christ borne by Saint Anthony squirms playfully in his arms, twisting his body outwards, while the saint gazes
upon him tenderly. Cano emphasized a sense of humanity in his sculpture, depicting a father cradling
his little son. The Child lies in the crook of the saint’s left arm and looks directly at the viewer, and
almost appears to want to wriggle from his protector’s arms, who, gazing in reverence and love,
nevertheless maintains a firm grip on his playful charge.
From drawings and paintings by Alonso Cano we know that the artist made versions of Saint Joseph
and the Child according to both iconographic models, that is, with the Child either walking with Saint
Joseph or cradled in his arms. The emotional focus that characterized Cano’s later treatment of the
subject became more intense in the hands of La Roldana, who strove to incorporate both an even
greater sense of tenderness and filial affection in the subject, and a more naturalistic animation in the
Child. The heightened sense of humanity evident in Cano’s Virgen de Belén,10 a work that was
subsequently imitated by his successors, provided the starting point for La Roldana’s versions of this
subject.
The very first known version of Saint Joseph and the Child by La Roldana is preserved in the Church
of Saint Anthony of Padua in Cadiz and was probably executed in collaboration with her husband, Luis
Antonio de los Arcos (Fig. 2). Here, the Child rests in Joseph’s arms in a rather forced position, looking
directly at the viewer with an affectionate appearance, and touching his father’s beard with his left hand. In a somewhat restless gesture, the Child also attempts to catch hold
of the saint’s tunic at the neck with his other hand, resulting in the rather
awkward position of his legs. The Child in the present sculpture was also
inspired by this early composition, though here, La Roldana varied the
twisting pose of the little figure and the position of the arms, reaching his
right hand to clasp the neckline of Joseph’s tunic, while resting his left arm
next to his body on the swaddling cloth or symbolic shroud. This gesture of
clutching the neckline is a detail repeated in the Antequera sculpture (Fig. 1).
The modelling of the infant figure is similar in all of La Roldana’s versions
for the subject. The heads in the works from Cadiz, the present sculpture,
and the Saint Anthony of Padua from the Church of Santa Cruz in Cadiz
(Fig. 6) all possess a similar sense of volume and litheness in the features.
They also share the same small sunken eyes, ample foreheads and hairstyle
characteristic of the artist, that is, parted to one side with the fringe
separated into locks ending in a curl.
In the present work the saint stands as if about to take a step forward,
advancing with his left leg. This sense of movement is shared by the other
three versions we have discussed (Cadiz, Antequera and Granada) and
shows the artist’s clear attempt to avoid a sense of stasis. Also, by parting
the folds of Joseph’s mantle, the artist revealed the shortened tunic and
exposed the saint’s foot, which in the Cadiz and Granada versions wears a
sandal, but in the present sculpture and the version in Antequera is shod in
a kind of sandal-boot or legging. In every version, the swirling border of the
mantle reinforces the dynamic sense of movement that the sculptor imparted
to the figure. In the Antequera and Granada examples the agitated folds
describe a zigzag line, whereas in the present example the folds are more
gentle, undulating, and of a type half-way between the Cadiz and Antequera
versions. This more sophisticated approach to drapery of the Antequera and
Granada examples argues in favour of a later date for the works.
The head of Saint Joseph is similar to that in the Cadiz group, and shows
the same softened features, reduced volume in the beard and a similar
hairstyle, with a centre parting, allowing a glimpse of the saint’s right ear.
Moreover, the position of the head and the direction of the saint’s gaze are
similar in the both works, as well as the example from Antequera. The
saint’s arms are held parallel cradling the Child who fidgets in a swaddling
cloth. In all the versions, including the aforementioned Saint Antony of
Padua, the adult hands have short, stubby fingers, with the index finger
separated from the middle finger in a marked V shape, and the two middle
fingers joined, in a manner similar to the hands El Greco painted in his
figures.

The surface of the octagonal pedestal is painted with a marbleized green tone, and bordered by gilt
foliate moulding above a flat profile marbleized in white and black above a gilt cyma recta moulding.
The shape of the pedestal is similar to the version in Granada, which, however, possesses additional
foliate motifs on the sides and is set on volute feet. Here, the lower element of the pedestal may possibly
date from the eighteenth century as it appears simplified and lacks such Baroque elements as the bun
feet.
The polychromy of the exhibited Saint Joseph with the Child is typical of La Roldana, or indeed, her
brother-in-law, Tomás de los Arcos, who frequently collaborated with the sculptor in her commissions
in Seville, Cadiz and even Madrid. Lastly, one further element that confirms the authorship of La
Roldana is the modelling and polychromy of the saint’s mantle on the verso, which is identical to that
in the magnificent version in Antequera (Figs. 1, 7). This later version of Saint Joseph and the Child
dates from La Roldana’s late Madrid period between 1689 and 1706, and provides us with another
vibrant and touching example of this, one of her most iconic subjects

1 J. L. ROMERO TORRES and A. TORREJÓN DÍAZ, Roldana,
exhibition catalogue, Reales Alcázares de Sevilla, as part of
Andalucía Barroca, Consejería de Cultura de la Junta de
Andalucía, Seville 2007, pp. 222–223.
2 A. TORREJÓN DÍAZ, ‘Luisa Roldán, San José. Cádiz, Iglesia
de San Antonio de Padua’, in ROMERO TORRES and
TORREJÓN DÍAZ, Roldana cit., p. 186.
3 J. L. ROMERO TORRES, ‘La Roldana y el Nazareno de Sisante’,
in La imagen barroca: el Nazareno de la Roldana y el arte
religioso en Sisante, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha,
Cuenca 2009 (forthcoming publication).
4We reject an attribution to Luisa Roldán for the Saint Joseph
Walking with the Child in a Madrid private collection,
because it is an Italianate sculpture from the middle of the
eighteenth century, despite the firm opinion expressed by M.
V. GARCÍA OLLOQUI in her article, ‘Iconografía de San José
con el Niño en dos obras de segura atribución’, in Espacio y
Tiempo, no. 19, Seville 2005, pp. 62–63.
5 For a discussion of the subject of Saint Joseph in Spanish art,
see F. PÉREZ-EMBID, San José en el arte español, exhibition
catalogue, Museo Español de Arte Contemporáneo, Madrid
1972.
6 J. GRACIÁN DE LA MADRE DE DIOS, Sumario de las
Excelencias del glorioso San José Esposo de la Virgen María,
book I, chap. 2, Toledo 1605.
7 A. MURO OREJÓN, Artífices sevillanos de los siglos XVI y
XVII, Documentos para la Historia del Arte en Andalucía,
Seville 1932, p. 78.
8 Marble, c. 340 BC., Olympia, Archaeological Museum.
This type became widely known throughout Europe from
the early sixteenth century onwards through numerous
Italian and northern engraved studies often made in Rome
after Roman copies of the Classical original.
9 I. MATEO GÓMEZ, ‘La visión del mundo clásico en el arte
español’, in Jornadas de Arte, Madrid 1993, vol. VI, pp.
37–48.
10 This was originally made in 1665 for the lectern of
Granada Cathedral and is now in the cathedral museum.
The sculpture is quite small-scale being only 45 centimetres.
Cano used a similar composition for a painting now in the
Archbishop’s Palace.

Private Collection, Córdoba