Novohispanic paintings of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Navarra, Spain
RICARDO FERNÁNDEZ GRACIA
Altarpiece of the Virgin of Guadalupe in the parish of Morentin, made at the end of the 17th century.
Photo J. L. Larrión
An outstanding chapter within the painting of the centuries of the Baroque in Navarre is the group of canvases that arrived from New Spain and, particularly, those representing the Virgin of Guadalupe. Many of them became known in the MonumentalCatalog of Navarra. Professor Echeverría Goñi studied the legacies of the Indianos in the Comunidad Foral in 1991 and contributed unpublished data on some of those canvases that have been repeated until today and were collected in the monograph on Viceroyal Art in Navarre, published in 1992. A few years ago, we made an advance of what this chapter of Novo-Hispanic painting meant from the point of view of its donors and it is in this aspect that we have been working, to be able to publish a monograph.
Despite the issue of works located in different localities -Estella, Viana, Morentin, Aberin, Muniain de la Solana, Pamplona, Arre, Lecumberri, Villafranca, Corella, Viana, Tudela, Puente la Reina, Zúñiga, Tafalla and in the Baztán Valley- and even signatures on the paintings -Juan Salguero, Juan Correa, Juan Rodríguez Juárez, Antonio de Torres, Francisco Antonio Vallejo, José Alzíbar or José Páez-, a good part of them were found without concrete news or reasoned suppositions as to why they reached their destinations and about the persons or institutions that made the gift.
The donors can be classified by their social status , finding bishops, military men of different ranks, merchants and friars, generally Franciscans. All of them with the common denominator of being Indianos, Spaniards established in American lands, although this more popular appellation refers to those who, after spending years there, returned to their places of origin, more or less enriched and exercised patronage work. In the latter case, upon their return, they were usually regarded with some suspicion, after making donations, especially of objects of worship, an act that in many cases obeyed a desire for social recognition. In numerous occasions, those donations arrived by testamentary way, not so the paintings that occupy us, since their internship totality were offered in life of the donors. A very varied mosaic of donors, as well as the causes of the shipments can be seen in the case of Navarre, from an archbishop to cloistered nuns, including merchants and military and government men.
The success of that Marian icon is already attested in the second half of the seventeenth century by the Jesuit Francisco de Florencia, when he states in his monograph on the history of the Virgin of Guadalupe that there were "infinite images, copies of this miraculous portrait, which has been made throughout this very large Kingdom; because it will not be found in all the Church, Chapel, house, or hut of Spanish, or Indian, in which they are not seen, and worship images of Our Lady of Guadalupe . Lady of Guadalupe ... I doubt or better to say, I do not doubt, ayan taken in the world more copies of another image of Mary, that this of Guadalupe de Mexico ... in Flanders in Spain, and throughout New Spain, are so many sheets, and burin tables ... that there is no guarismo to count them".
In many cases, the painting remained in the native house of the Indiano, while in others it acquired greater relevance by being hung in a sanctuary, parish or chapel of special significance. Among all of them, the one that the Marquis of San Miguel de Aguayo destined to the church of the Jesuit high school of Pamplona, where he founded a feast and novena, in the final years of the XVII century, stood out for the cult received. Particularly important were the canvases that were venerated in the conventual churches of the Franciscan order, in their male and female branches, the Poor Clares and the Conceptionists. The Franciscans introduced throughout Spain the devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe, although in Mexico they only declared themselves in favor and, decidedly, from the beginning of the XVIII century. As Fray Esteban Anticolí narrates, in the Franciscan convents of Valladolid, Palencia, Segovia, Rioseco, Villalvin and Peñafiel there were altars with the mentioned Marian icon. The shipments of Guadeloupean paintings to Hispanic lands increased from the end of the XVII century due to the proliferation of specialized workshops, but mainly to the propaganda of the Creole clergy.
The image and the apparitional cycle
As it is known, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe has to be affiliated with an apocalyptic Marian model , to which with time the four or five scenes of the apparition were added, as well as other symbolic and decorative elements, without missing in some cases the view of the sanctuary and its surroundings. She is invariably represented according to an outline repeated ad nauseam, crowned and with the golden burst of the sun, in prayerful attitude, with the average moon at her feet held by an angel. She wears a pink tunic and a blue mantle, traditional colors for the Virgin, the first for being in biblical times typical of maidens and alluding to the incarnation and the second as a symbol of the unalterable color of the sky. Her face is usually that of an indigenous brown woman with more or less intensity of the brown color, the thin eyebrows and the look leave and collected. The hair is black and parted in the middle. The palms of the hands are joined at chest level and the left leg is usually slightly forward. Next to the halo of the sun, the moon with the tips upwards is usually present, so the allusions to the text of the Apocalypse are evident: electa ut sol pulchra ut luna.
In the seventeenth century canvases with the apparitions are already found. Professor Vargas Lugo has pointed out that in the middle of that century there was a feverish "intellectual activity on the part of the Creoles to support, root, spread and explain the Guadalupan miracle". In that context, important works of the so-called Guadalupan evangelists were published, among them Miguel Sánchez, famous theologian and preacher who published in 1648 his Image of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God of Guadalupe, miraculously appeared in Mexico City. Also, important compositions were painted and engraved around the topic. Among the latter compositions, the apparitions were painted, at first as single pieces and later incorporated into the topic of the Virgin. According to Jaime Cuadriello, one of the first cycles dates from 1648, when the vicar of the Shrine of Our Lady of Fair Love in Guadalupe ordered the sanctuary to be decorated with "beautiful paintings of the apparitions of the Virgin". After that date, we know of important commissions with iconographies of the apparitions, already in the decade of the sixties of the XVII century. These paintings were intended to visually show the miraculous story of the Virgin of Guadalupe to those who could not read. Their success was so great that they multiplied and ended up being incorporated into the Marian image in the corners of her paintings. Some of them came from New Spain, due to the demand from European lands, particularly from Spain.
To the XVIII century belong most of the canvases, conserved in Navarra, with the Virgin and the four or five scenes of the apparition cycle to Juan Diego, conserved in Navarra, finding some with rich floral borders. The declaration as patron saint of New Spain in 1746 resulted, if possible, in more representations of her icon.
For their representation of the apparitions there existed a series of engravings, published in novenas and other books, that could serve to the artists of graphic inspiration, next to the texts that the literary sources would provide them. The first scene places us in the morning of December 9, 1531 and corresponds to the moment in which Juan Diego was on his way to hear mass at the convent of Santiago de Tlatelolco and was attracted by the song of birds on the hill of Tepeyac, where Mary was. She spoke to him in the Nahuatl language and asked him to communicate to the bishop his desire to build a temple there. The following scenes follow the stories that took place in the month of December 1531. On the afternoon of the 9th of the month mentioned above, the Indian told the Virgin that the prelate had not paid attention to him, and she urged him to visit him again. In that visit, Bishop Zumárraga asked him for a test or sign. Between the 10th and 11th of December, the Indian Juan Diego went to his town to visit his uncle Bernardino, who was very sick. When he arrived and saw his fatal state, he went to Tlatelolco in search of a confessor and on the way he met Our Lady again, he explained to her that he could not stop to look for a priest, the Virgin answered him that his uncle was already healthy and that he should go up the hill of Tepeyac. In this place he would find some flowers that he should cut and take to the bishop as a sign, and that the bishop should see them. Finally, Juan Diego presented himself before the bishop and unfolded his tilma, from which the roses fell, but not only did this happen, but he was able to contemplate the image of Mary printed on the Indian's tilma. A member of the clergy named Juan González accompanied the bishop to serve as interpreter between Zumárraga and Juan Diego. In some occasions, it is possible to contemplate in this last scene to the figure of the Indian of great size, like resource to show the tilma completely extended.
Virgin of Guadalupe of the Conceptionists of Estella, by Juan Salguero, before 1662.
Photo F. Echeverría
The founders of the Conceptionist Recollects of Estella, when arriving from the Soria town of Agreda, in 1731, to settle in the city of the Ega, brought different artistic pieces. The list contained the following objects: a large monstrance of silver and gilded stones, a chalice, different ornaments, three ternos, an "original" image of Our Lady, another image of St. Joseph also "original", a large Baby Jesus, a painting of two bars of Our Lady of Guadalupe "original", another painting of the Venerable, a messica with two drawers that belonged to the Venerable, a sheet from her bed, an "original" Christ , a reliquary with its silver foot as a monstrance with seven bones of the Venerable Mother Agreda, an original crown of bone with seven bones of the Venerable, a cross "of those that the angels carried to the manger where the Child was", an exercise cross of the Venerable, as well as a large set of other small pieces. The epithet "original" alludes to the fact that it arrived at the Soria convent in the time of its abbess, Sister María Jesús de Ágreda.
Among all those pieces, the mentioned canvas of the Guadalupana stood out, which had arrived from New Spain in 1662, signed by Juan Salguero, Mexican painter of the third quarter of the XVII century, presbyter, graduate in theology and one of the masters who made the analysis of the original painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in 1666. The painting was in the convent of Agreda at least since 1663. Its origin must be located in a donation to the abbess Sister María Jesús de Ágreda on the part of Francisca Ruiz de Valdivieso, chambermaid of the Duchess of Alburquerque, to whom she served in New Spain between 1653 and 1662. It is necessary to remember that the first painting with the four apparitions, documented up to the moment, is a great canvas, conserved in Ágreda and donation of the same Francisca Ruiz, who entered in the agredana cloister and is signed by José Juárez in 1656.
The donor of the canvas was Francisca Ruiz de Valdivieso (1614-1677). According to her own statement, she was born in Ágreda in 1614, and was the daughter of Mateo Ruiz de Valdivieso and María Arrieta y Araciel. She remained in her native town until 1640, when she left to serve the Dukes of Alburquerque, first in the villa and Court of Madrid and, later, in New Spain, while her lord the Duke occupied the viceroyalty, between 1653 and 1660. Her name has transcended the walls of the Soria cloister because of the great artistic legacies she brought with her, despite being an illiterate woman. Pieces of silver, very important canvases, feather art, ivories, basins and a long etcetera of trousseau, unthinkable in any other novice of her status.
Virgin of Guadalupe, by Juan Correa, early 18th century in the parish of San Pedro de la Rúa in Estella.
Photo J. L. Larrión
To the famous painter Juan Correa (c. 1646-1716) belong two paintings from around 1700, the first from the Augustinian Recollect Nuns of Pamplona -donated by the chaplain Don Miguel Ostíbar- and the second from the parish of San Pedro de la Rúa in Estella, coming from the church of Santa María Jus del Castillo, where it had gone, after the 19th century confiscation, from the convent of the Franciscans in the same city. Both paintings, as the work of Juan Correa, are distinguished from others by their A , modeling and luminosity.
The author of these canvases, the mulatto Juan Correa (c. 1646-1716) was a member of a family of painters, and son of Juan Correa, a surgeon and author of the first book dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe, in 1648, which dealt with the therapeutic qualities of mercury. He was a mulatto and cultured artist who became a senior master of the cathedral of Mexico. He is considered the most important painter of those who were active in New Spain in the transition from the XVII to the XVIII century and master of Miguel Cabrera and José de Ibarra. His work has been studied and catalogued by Professor Vargaslugo, highlighting, in addition to the prolific nature of his painting, the variety of clients for whom he worked, so that his work sample different levels of quality. Regarding his numerous paintings of Our Lady of Guadalupe, several considerations should be noted for the contextualization and evaluation of both paintings, which are not, as we shall see, the only ones by their author in Navarre.
The Franciscan convent of Estella, where the canvas of the Virgin of Guadalupe was venerated in its own altarpiece, was one of the main ones in the city. Regarding the Novo-Hispanic painting, it is necessary to remember that one of his sons was very present in the city, Fray José de Ezpeleta, born in Estella around 1630 and Franciscan friar from 1650, habitual custodian of the one of San Pablo of New Mexico, who died martyred in 1680 in that region, with other 21 companions, at the hands of the Indians. But specifying the patron of the canvas, everything leads us to Don Martin Antonio de Noguera, son of Martin de Noguera and Josefa de Irujo, captain of armor in Merida de Yucatan, who went to the Indies in 1699. In a letter of 1754 he affirmed to serve in that city from 1734 and that the Franciscans of Estella had order him a hanging for their church. In 1746 he had remitted the respectable amount of 300 pesos to the vicar and beneficiaries of Abárzuza and 50 pesos to the father guardian of the Franciscans of Estella for the realization of a head and hands of the candlestick figure of a life-size Nazarene, which was to be dressed in a purple velvet tunic, silk and gold cord around the neck and the cross on the shoulders. The figure on its platform would serve, by the donor's own wish, to be carried in the Stations of the Cross that annually went out along the banks of the river in procession in the position the Third Order. Until then, the figure of Christ was represented by a man, something that Don Martin Antonio did not think was decent.
The Estella canvas (161 x cms.) participates of other canvases of Juan Correa's topic , which signature without date the painting that should be dated in the first years of the XVIII century.
Virgin of Guadalupe, by Juan Correa, late seventeenth century in the Augustinian Recollect nuns of Pamplona.
Photo J. L. Larrión
The painting of the Augustinian Recollect Nuns signed by Juan Correa arrived in the first years of the 18th century, by the hand of the former chaplain Miguel Ostíbar. In the set of works of movable patrimony that have reached our days, as well as in the inventories of the XVII and XVIII centuries, there are several pieces that arrived by way of their chaplains. Along with the Virgin of Guadalupe by Miguel de Ostíbar, we find the Virgin of Musquilda by Miguel de Recari, the image of the Virgin of the Snows by Antonio de Satrústegui, the painting of the Divine Shepherd Child, offered by Pedro Portillo and the painting of Saint Gertrude, by Miguel de Laborería.
The canvas of the Virgin of Guadalupe, from the last years of the 17th century, measures 172 x cms. and is adapted to the production of its author, who signature the work. It is preserved in a rich framework from the first decade of the 18th century, perhaps around 1710, when the painting entered the cloister.
The news of the donor of the Guadalupana painting is provided by the book of inventories, where we read: "Mas un cuadro de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe con su framework dorado. Don Miguel de Ostíbar, chaplain of this convent, gave it". It has been written that Don Miguel was chaplain of the Recoletas between 1677 and 1731, although it will be necessary to clarify, in future programs of study, both the dates and the way in which Ostíbar got the painting, taking into account that he was not in New Spain.
purpose the status and that of the Recollect chaplains, in general, Father Villerino refers that "to the chaplaincies of this convent ordinarily ascend very important people of the kingdom, leaving great incomes in other parts, secretaries of bishops, and other honorable occupations; and from chaplains ascended some to canons of Pamplona; and even gave the chaplains of that General convent to the most serious Religion of San Antonio .... The chaplains of this convent of Pamplona in the modesty, decency of the habit and retreat with which they behave, seem like canons of a cathedral of the most pundorous. And if perhaps some of them neglected the modesty, which the very walls of the convent publish, the mothers took away the chaplaincy, breaking with intercessions of such superior persons that, from kings down, they could not have been greater".
The dating of the entrance the painting in the aforementioned inventory, like those of most of the book, is not recorded with any accuracy, it is simply noted with a long list of objects that arrived from 1677 onwards. However, we can approximate the date, if we take into account that the record is a little ahead of the sculpture of St. Joseph, which was acquired in the auction of the Marquis de la Solera, Viceroy of Navarre, who died in July 1706. Shortly after the entrance, in the inventory of the canvas of the Virgin of Guadalupe, we find a donation of two plates of St. Bernard and St. Anastasius, donated by Maria Ripalda, the same one who gave a cross in the first decade of the 18th century. Therefore, the Correa canvas entered the Recoletas convent around 1710.
Virgin of Guadalupe from the chapel of the Virgen de los Remedios of the parish of San Nicolas de Tudela, work of Antonio de Torres, 1711. Tudela's Museo Decanal.
Photo B. Aldanondo
Two paintings of Our Lady of Guadalupe, signed by the Mexican painter Antonio de Torres (1666-1731), are preserved in Tudela and in the sanctuary of the Trinidad de Arre. The aforementioned painter was very popular; he was the nephew of Antonio Rodriguez and cousin of Juan and Nicolas Rodriguez Juarez. His abundant work is scattered in different Mexican localities: San Luis Potosí, San Miguel de Allende, Dolores Hidalgo, Guadalajara, Zacatecas, Aguascalientes, Acolman and Mexico City, which allows us to conclude that he was a very appreciated painter. For this last circumstance he must have been chosen for the recognition that, in 1721, was made of the original painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe, together with the aforementioned Rodriguez Juarez brothers. Of his works we will mention the series of the life of the Virgin in eight canvases of the high school of Guadalupe, near Zacatecas. Torres painted the Virgin of Guadalupe on numerous occasions and at least ten copies are preserved in Spain, several of them located in Seville.
The first painting of Navarre is signed in 1711 and is currently in the Museo Decanal of Tudela, where it arrived from its original destination, the chapel of the Virgen de los Remedios of the extinct parish of San Nicolas in the same city. In its registration we read "Del General Dn. Pedro / Ramirez de Arellano", "Tocada a la original / de Mexico. Year 1711" and "Anttº De Torres ft". It had been sent there by the general from Tudela, Don Pedro Ramirez de Arellano, who ten years earlier had been appointed to the government of the city of Xicayan in New Spain, a reason that gave rise in Tudela to a great celebration. The painting was destined, as we have indicated, to a public and religious space, concretely to the chapel of the Virgen de los Remedios, an invocation that enjoyed in the first half of the 18th century great popularity in the city.
The donor is the same one that appears portrayed in a canvas of the Immaculate Conception of the extinct convent of Dominicas de Tudela, work of Juan Correa, of 1701. It is Don Pedro Ramírez de Arellano López y Aperregui, captain of horses, appointed to the government of the city of Xicayán in New Spain in 1701, a year that coincides with that of Correa's canvas of the Dominicans and that, therefore, agrees much better with the provenance and chronology of the painting. As soon as he learned of his appointment, he wrote to his hometown, offering himself to the city council in September of that year. The town was overjoyed and, as on other occasions, decided to celebrate the news by running a bull through the streets, lighting the customary bonfire, hanging cheers and illuminating the balconies of the Town Hall with axes. Don Pedro's ties with his native Tudela did not disappear with his departure to New Spain. We know that, in March of 1720, his son Don Pedro Ramírez de Arellano y Yanci married María Francisca Aperregui y Tornamira, daughter of Don Gregorio Antonio, knight of Santiago. In the corresponding marriage certificate, it is stated that the father of the contracting party continued occupying the position of governor of Xicayán in New Spain.
Another canvas of similar characteristics, by the aforementioned painter Antonio de Torres, dated 1730, is kept in the basilica of the Trinity of Arre. It must have been sent, with great probability, by some Indian baptized in that sanctuary, where some of the children of the noblest and wealthiest families of the parish of San Cernin of the capital of Navarre received their baptismal waters.
Virgin of Guadalupe with the apparitions, work attributed to Manuel Arellano, first decade of the XVIII century, from the Conceptionists of Tafalla, today in the Museum of Navarra.
Photo Museum of Navarra
In the Conceptionist convent of Tafalla, a pair of canvases of the Virgin of Guadalupe, from the Franciscan convent of San Sebastian in the same city, one of them clearly eighteenth-century with the four stories of the apparition of the Virgin to the Indian Juan Diego, were catalogued.
There seems to be no doubt that this last painting was part of the altarpiece that was in the convent of San Sebastian of the Franciscans and that was paid for by "Srª Munárriz" around 1745. To this last one it is necessary to identify with Doña Bernarda Munárriz, cousin of the marquises of Murillo Don Juan Bautista Iturralde and Doña Manuela Munárriz, wife of this last one. Doña Bernarda was married to José Orta from Tafalla, businessman and main promoter of the Library of the Hermandad de la Purísima Concepción de Tafalla, which he nourished with numerous books. Together with his wife they made singular donations to the churches of Tafalla. Doña Bernarda is well known for having donated several pieces of courtly sculpture to the convent of the Franciscans of Olite, among them the A carved by Luis Salvador Carmona of Saint Rose of Viterbo in 1749, along with two images of the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin of Mercy. A manuscript of the Franciscans of Olite, signed by Father Herce, states about the donor that she was "a very devout lady, being this lady in Madrid, she had them made there by the best artisans".
The altarpiece of the Virgin of Guadalupe of the aforementioned convent of San Sebastian was in the chapel of the same dedication, which had a confraternity, in which the Franciscans were buried.
Virgin of Guadalupe of the choir of the Discalced Carmelite nuns of Araceli de Corella, beginning of the 18th century.
Photo J. L. Larrión
The canvas of the choir of the Carmelitas de Araceli de Corella is previous in chronology to the one of the conference room of work of the same house, since it has to be dated at the beginning of the XVIII century. It presents in its four angles oval medallions with the passages of the apparitions to the Indian Juan Diego. Under the image of the Virgin, as in other paintings, we find the view of the old sanctuary of Guadalupe with its surroundings. The whole composition is bordered with symbolic roses, interwoven in a garland, according to a widespread example in the iconography of Guadalupe. It conserves a delicate framework of carved wood painted in dark color with appliqués of golden carving, from the beginning of the XVIII century, undoubtedly from a Corellan workshop. This gift was made to the community by Don Ramón Íñiguez in 1867, who appears as a presbyter in the parish of San Miguel of the city in 1835 and was still alive in the middle of the 19th century, when he declared in some entrance exams to enter the Order of Santiago. Another document in the file states that Don Ramón was at the time of the donation, 1867, chaplain of the Community. It is possible that he was a descendant of the Corellan Don Manuel Íñiguez y Duarte (1695-1751), captain of horses of the Regiment of Malta. The presbyter Don Ramón Íñiguez made other varied gifts to the community and this painting was valued, at the time of the donation, in the amount of 10,000 reales de vellón.
The piece could have been inherited from his maternal grandfather Juan Antonio Morales de Rada y Luna (1723-1774) and the latter from his father Juan Manuel Morales (1695-1735), who married in 1716 with Doña Francisca de Luna y Argaiz, sister of the famous Sister Águeda, Carmelite of Corella and one of its founders, who died in the inquisitorial jails. Precisely, Don Juan Manuel was in the Indies in the service of the crown, although he soon returned to Corella, where he died at only thirty-nine years of age, in 1739.
Virgin of Guadalupe from the parish of Santa María de Viana, work attributed to Juan Rodríguez Juárez, c. 1720.
Photo J. L. Larrión
From the walls of the conference room of the parish of Santa Maria hangs the portrait of the archbishop Perez de Lanciego, work of Juan Rodriguez Juarez, made around 1720. Also, in the same room is another large painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
Archbishop José Pérez de Lanciego y Eguilaz was born in February 1656 in Viana, completed philosophical programs of study in Alcalá de Henares and entered as a Benedictine in Nájera in 1671. After being formed in the schools of the Congregation of San Benito de Valladolid, he occupied teaching positions in the same, becoming abbot of Nájera, where he founded the School of Christ, was general definitor and famous preacher in San Martín de Madrid and qualifier of the Inquisition. He was presented by Philip V for the archbishopric of Mexico in 1714, after having hosted, shortly before, the queen and the prince of Asturias. He was consecrated in the novo-Hispanic capital by the Spanish Cistercian Fray Angel Manrique, bishop of Oaxaca, assisted by the bishops of Michoacan and Guadalajara. In 1720, coinciding with his delegates to his hometown, he wanted to gather a synod to reestablish the ecclesiastical discipline . He died in 1728 and was buried in the cathedral, in the context of a great epidemic that devastated the novo-Hispanic capital. He bequeathed his heart and eyes to his Monastery of Nájera, where they were deposited with their own tombstone, in the chapel of San Antón that, years before, he promoted to serve as a burial place for the monks. The detail of sending his eyes and his heart was imitated, little later, by the bishop Castorena y Ursúa, who did the same thing with destiny to Ágreda, by testamentary decision of 1731.
The portrait and the painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe are the work of Juan Rodríguez Juárez, known as the Mexican Apeles, and a specialist in portraits, having painted viceroys, bishops, nobles, officials and ladies. In a letter signed by the archbishop, dated 1720, one of his secretaries warned that the aforementioned archbishop was sending his brother, who lived in Viana, three portraits -one for the parish of San Pedro de Viana, another for Nájera and the third, whose whereabouts are unknown-. From Mexico the same prelate sent other valuable donations to relatives and religious institutions. The portrait has a long registration in which his cursus honorum as abbot of Nájera, royal preacher, Inquisition qualifier and archbishop of Mexico is recorded.
Altarpiece of the Virgin of Guadalupe in the church of San Francisco de Viana, c. 1715-1720, by Francisco del Plano and his workshop, with early 18th century Novo-Hispanic paintings.
Photo J. L. Larrión
In the convent of San Francisco de Viana a spectacular set of scenographic paintings has been preserved, of the so-called perspective paintings, with several feigned altarpieces, which Mercedes Jover attributed to the Aragonese master Francisco del Plano. Dating it to the second decade of the 18th century, it is contextualized in the works done by this painter in the lands of La Rioja and Navarre. It is the first set in which this subject of paintings triumphed, which, with the passing of the century, would be imposed in numerous headers, particularly in Santa María de Viana and the parish of Los Arcos, works of the Burgos painter José Bravo.
As for its financing in part or in whole, it is to be presumed that it was financed by Indian capital, a fortiori, since the altarpiece of the Virgin of Guadalupe appears among the altarpieces, which would lead us to consider a promoter with ties to New Spain. In the absence of other data, we sketched, some time ago, the possibility that he was one of the Franciscans of Viana who were destined to the important convent of the order in the city of Zacatecas. In 1682 Fray Juan de Aguera departed and in 1715 Fray Tomás Lacayo de Briones. In a special way, the partnership of this second Franciscan would be more plausible, who could have sent either the painting with the scenes of the apparitions for the altarpiece or pay for the piece or collaborate in the whole, taking into account the Indian contributions to Navarrese art. The Novo-Hispanic painting would be made at the beginning of the 18th century. Another outstanding person who could have collaborated decisively in this project and who should never be overlooked was Don Juan de Goyeneche, a well-known protector of the interests of the community of Viana, who donated the "exquisite" image of San Juan, according to the testimony of the chronicler Garay who calls him in his work, published in 1741, as "benefactor of this convent", and bequeathed by will the amount of 300 ducats.
Technically, as in other cases, they are not frescoes, but oil paintings on canvases adhered to the walls. As for the dedication of the altarpieces, in many cases it is difficult to find out, if we take into account that carved altarpieces from other places were placed over the paintings. What is beyond any doubt is the Marian dedication of most of them, as it could not be otherwise in the house of the sons of San Francisco: Assumption, Virgin of Pilar, Our Lady of Guadalupe and Dolorosa, perhaps adding the Immaculate Conception as the main altarpiece.
Be that as it may, Viana's Guadalupe altarpiece is highly original, not only for presenting a perspective altarpiece, but also for merging its simulated Structures with the Novo-Hispanic canvas of the Virgin of Guadalupe and its four apparition scenes. It is the garlands of flowers, roses in particular, that give the piece its own character. The rest of the iconographic program, whose final message escapes us, is very interesting. It quotation a pair of Franciscans and another pair of Dominicans, plus St. Jerome penitent in the attic. The presence of the latter could be due to an ancient dedication of the chapel. Regarding the two Franciscans, one is St. Bonaventure seated and in an attitude of writing. It makes pendant with another doctor of the Church, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Dominican. To this last order belongs Saint Dominic of Guzman, its founder, who does not match with Saint Francis of Assisi, but with the reformer Saint Peter of Alcantara, unmistakable by his mended habit and his attribute.
Virgin of Guadalupe of the Company of Mary of Tudela, work of Antonio de Torres, 1720.
Photo J. L. Larrión
The Company of Mary Our Lady is the first religious institute of educational character for women. The house of Tudela was founded by nuns from the convent of Barcelona in 1687 and its promoter was Don Francisco Garcés del Garro, a wealthy father of a family, concerned about the lack of educational centers for women. From Tudela, the Company of Mary expanded in the following foundations: Zaragoza (1744), Mexico (1754), Santiago de Compostela (1759), San Fernando (1760), Vergara (1799), Valladolid (1880), Almeria (1885), Logroño (1889), Talavera de la Reina (1899) and Pamplona (1966), with La teaching in Mexico City being the first formal educational center for women in Latin America and, in turn, a center of expansion in other countries.
The donor of the painting was the famous María Ignacia de Azlor y Echeverz, granddaughter of the Marquis of San Miguel de Aguayo. Born in the Indies, of Aragonese and Navarrese ancestry and with a not inconsiderable fortune, she decided to be formed in the bosom of the Company of Mary in its convent of Tudela, to once concluded the period of the novitiate, to return with a handful of religious of that house to lead a true pedagogical revolution in the lands of New Spain, from which the Creole women of those lands were going to benefit. María Ignacia was the granddaughter of Agustín de Echeverz, Marquis of San Miguel de Aguayo, who started, at his expense, the great mansion on the Main Street of Pamplona. One of the daughters of the latter, Ignacia Javiera, together with her third husband José de Azlor y Virto de Vera, were the parents of María Ignacia.
The religious noblewoman arrived in the capital of La Ribera when her church was recently inaugurated and in plenary session of the Executive Council at the moment of the realization of her ornament.
Sermons, carols and music were given quotation in his entratic and his profession, raising the sensory temperature on both occasions, in 1743 and 1745, respectively. Prominent preachers and composers were given quotation and, as an exceptional case in Navarre, the texts of the carols performed were published. In no case, nor in any other female convent in Navarre do we know of these editions which, in other places, used to form part of the rhetoric of the festivities of entrance into the religious communities, especially when it was a matter of novices with possible. Her arrival in Tudela for training was due to the fame of this house, which had crossed borders, coming to live with several religious of singular relevance.
Antonio de Torres initials the canvas of the Guadalupana with the apparitions, in 1720. It was preserved for centuries in the convent's rooms and was quite deteriorated until it was restored in 2005 for the exhibition of Juan de Goyeneche and the triumph of the Navarrese in the Hispanic Monarchy of the 18th century, being studied by Elisa Vargaslugo. In this case, the apparitionist cycle, represented in octagons with very simple golden frames, is narrated in the upper left corner, passes to the upper right and continues in the lower part, from left to right. In the lower part, in a wide rectangle, the town of Guadalupe is represented, which could be reached by crossing a causeway that crossed the lagoon of Mexico. It should be noted that the sanctuary is presented with four towers, as it was projected around 1720, in the same year in which the painting is signed, although it was a plan that in the end was not carried out.
Professor Vargaslugo noticed the very dark face of the Virgin, "very Mexican", a color that, with greater or lesser intensity, always appears in the iconography of Guadalupe. The fact that on this occasion it is so dark, made the aforementioned researcher suppose the possibility that the donor, María Ignacia de Azlor, expressly desired the detail of that canvas destined for Spain, a fortiori taking into account that its author, Antonio de Torres, did not do it with that intensity in other paintings of the same Marian image.
To the Marian icon of apocalyptic subject , already fixed from the previous century, the painters added other motifs such as flowers, emblems and other symbolic elements. In this case we find four angels carrying elements that speak of the epithets of the litany of Laurel: roses, the mirror without stain and the tower or, rather, the gate of heaven.
Altarpiece of the Virgin of Guadalupe in the church of the Compañía de María in Tudela, by brothers José and Antonio del Río, c. 1745.
Photo B. Aldanondo
There is, as we have already pointed out in different works, a documentary data on one of the altarpieces of the church of the high school of the Company of Mary of Tudela, specifically that of the Virgin of Guadalupe, with her image in solitary, without the apparitions, which informs us that it was made with the gifts of Sister Maria Ignacia Azlor. The nun left a record of her gift by stating that she did it "for having been born in the Indies under her protection".
The altarpiece is part of the set of three that preside over the church of the teaching or Company of Mary, offering a complement to the beautiful and interesting baroque architecture. They were made around 1745 by the brothers Jose and Antonio del Rio, and they announce the triumph of the delicacy of Rococo art, through a careful decoration of small and curly foliage. The main body of the altarpiece is occupied by a painting of the Sacred Original of Tepeyac, made a few years earlier, perhaps brought in her trousseau by the aforementioned María Ignacia.
Its promoter, Maria Ignacia Azlor, who made her novitiate in the house of Tudela, where she arrived on September 24, 1742 and remained there until 1752, date in which she left for her native land and founded the high school of Mexico, after having made her solemn profession. He paid for the altarpiece of the patron saint of Mexico at the high school in Tudela, collaborated with 600 ducats for the site of the orchard and donated a rich French dress to make a terno, which was worn for the first time on the day of his profession. Her gifts also reached the chapter of the collegiate church, as sample the donation of 800 reals for the gift of Saint Anne in 1748, "showing her gratitude for having attended the chapter at her profession and the said treasurer has expressed that the said amount should be used for the gold cloth robe that in continuation of the one that had been started...... that should serve in the festivities of Our Patron Saint Anne".
It is one of the three altarpieces preserved in Navarra, under the invocation of the Virgin of Guadalupe, together with the one in the parish of Morentin and the one in her chapel in the church of San Francisco de Viana.
Virgin of Guadalupe of the Discalced Carmelites of Araceli de Corella, c. 1750.
Photo J. L. Larrión
The canvas of the conference room of labor of the Discalced Carmelites of Corella was a donation of Damiana Olloqui for having among the community her niece, daughter of Melchora Olloqui, widow of Bayona. Doña Melchora inherited the entire estate of the Olloqui palace and married Don Manuel Bayona. From the marriage was born an only daughter named Rafaela who, after the death of her father in 1878, entered Corella as a nun in 1879, with the name of Rafaela de la Virgen del Carmen, dying in 1924 at the age of 71. Her mother, Doña Melchora moved to live in Corella, made her testament in the same city and died in 1887, bequeathing the palace and important amounts of money to the Carmelites of Araceli. Among the pieces donated by Doña Melchora are this canvas, that of St. Michael, a sculpture of St. Joachim, the Infant Jesus dressed as a Carmelite from the conference room Capitular or Reliquary, as well as a delicate canvas of St. Joachim and the Virgin and Child, a copy by Carreño.
Damiana de Olloqui y Martínez de Sicilia and her sister Doña Melchora were cousins of General Baldomero Espartero Espartero's wife, Doña María Jacinta Guadalupe Martínez de Sicilia y Santa Cruz (1811-1878). The Education of the latter was the position of her paternal grandmother, Guadalupe Ruiz de la Cámara and her aunt Josefa Martínez de Sicilia, due to the premature death of her father and mother. The repetition of the name Guadalupe in the wife of Espartero and his grandmother, puts us on the way to think about the plausible possibility that the canvas, today in Corella, had belonged to the mentioned Guadalupe Ruiz de la Cámara and then to her granddaughter Jacinta Guadalupe. The latter inherited from her grandmother a deep religiosity and exquisite Education.
Novohispanic paintings of the Virgin of Guadalupe were not always objects originally destined for the convents and monasteries of nuns where they have been preserved to this day. A good test to this transfer are both this painting and the other preserved in the same cloister, specifically in its choir loft.
The person who carried out this commission was Don Bautista Echeverría, a native of Baztania who settled in New Spain and was a very successful businessman. According to the documentation, this copper was part of a series of five small-format paintings that Echeverría commissioned from Nicolás Enríquez himself -four of them were signed by the artist and dated 1773- and which should be related to his main devotions: St. John the Baptist, his patron saint, the Holy Family, as well as the Virgin of Pilar, a very widespread cult in the lands of Baztanes, St. Francis Xavier, co-patron saint of Navarre and the Virgin of Guadalupe, which is noted to be "touched to its Wonderful Original", that is to say to the titular image of Mexico, to reach all the thaumaturgical power of the latter. The copper belongs today to the Metropolitan Museum of New York. In the four corners there are four moments of the apparitions and in the inferior part it presents the following registration: "Touched to its Wonderful Original, the day two of July of 1785 / By devotion of Dn Juan Baptista Eche / uerria / Nicolaus Enriques Fact Mixici Aº 1773". From the text it is inferred that the painter executed the work in 1773, but that the painting did not acquire those added graces, which supposed its contact with the ayate, until July 2, 1785, which indicates that the piece arrived at Irurita, after its possessor, who arrived at the Valley on June 16, 1785, after a journey that is known in detail. This fact may indicate that he waited to send the copper until it was graced with the contact with the image of Tepeyac.
As for the Indian Juan Bautista Echeverría y Latadi (1743-1816), we know that he went to New Spain when he was 13 years old, under the protection of his uncle Gabriel de Echeverría, an officer in the accounting office of the royal coffers of Mexico. After spending twenty-seven years in New Spain, where he made a fortune of no less than sixty thousand pesos fuertes, he returned to his homeland, with a great experience in commerce. In 1786 he married María Micaela Gastón de Iriarte y Cortejarena, of the Iriartea de Errazu house, one of the Baztanese estates that contributed the most prominent men in the century that Don Julio Caro Baroja described as that of the Hora Navarra. The year after his nuptials, he decided to build the family house in Irurita, taking as a model, as Pilar Andueza indicates, the native house of his wife, that his in-laws Pedro José Gastón de Iriarte y Elizacoechea, lieutenant colonel of the Royal Guards and knight of Santiago and Mª Joaquina de Cortejarena, had raised between 1754 and 1755. As Professor Andueza points out, this model was followed both in Reparacea and in the palace of Subiza.
The existing data to date on the author of the copper, Nicolás Enríquez (1722-1787), place him as a much sought-after master. A very long professional life is attributed to him, with documented activity between 1730 and 1780. Those decades made him a witness to the new directions taken by eighteenth-century New Spain painting, and he was able to achieve a certain prestige.
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