Title

The Lamentation

Juni, Juan de (Joigny, ca. 1507 - Valladolid, 1577)

Generic classification

Object

Date

Century

Cultural context / style

Dimensions

Material

Technique

Iconography / Theme

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Inventory Number in Current Collection

Inscriptions / Marks

QVI TRANSITIS PERVIAM . ATENDITE ET VIDE[T]E SI EST. DOLOR SIMILIS, SICVT. DOLOR MEVS QUINET TVAMIPIVS ANIMAM PENE[T]R[A]BIT GLADIVS  (In the frame)

Object history

This is one of the versions of the Pietà in polychrome terracotta, in small format and intended for private devotion, which were created in the workshop of Juan de Juni. Various versions circulated based on the master's original, of which several copies had to be made in his workshop, and later others by his followers. This is a fine example; Margaret Trusted, the leading scholar of the V&A Museum's Spanish sculpture collection, considered that this work may have come from Salamanca, because of stylistic similarities with Juan de Juni's relief in Salamanca Cathedral: the funerary monument of the archdeacon Gutierre de Castro (Trusted, 1996, pp. 45-48). However, there are other interesting details that suggest that the work may well have left Valladolid at the end of the 19th century. As we know, the master had an active workshop in Valladolid, although he received and developed important commissions in other Castilian towns.

In the inventory of the possessions owned by Juana Martínez, widow of Isaac de Juni (the natural son of Juan de Juni, 1539-1597), dated 1612, the following is documented: ‘a work of a half-relief clay image of the Descent from the Cross’. Perhaps this is one of the versions currently preserved or a similar one, since, according to Fernández del Hoyo, it is difficult to know how many replicas by the master's hand and how many later copies were made from the original model (Fernández del Hoyo, 2012, pp. 152-153). In 1724 Palomino, referring to Valladolid, noted: ‘in the church of San Martín in the city there is a little baked clay story of the Descent from the Cross which some sculptors have emptied out because it is so pilgrim’. Ponz also saw this work: ‘In the Sacristy [Parish Church of San Martín] they keep a small work by Juan de Juni’ (Ponz, 1781, p.77). Similarly, García-Valladolid alluded to this example in 1922: ‘and a bas-relief, by Juan de Juni, representing the Descent of Jesus’ (García-Valladolid, 1922, p. 36). This relief from the church of San Martín, described by Palomino, Ponz and García-Valladolid, is now in the Diocesan Museum of Valladolid. Martín González came to regard it as the head of the series and believed that the casts made of it had caused its deterioration (Martín González, 1974).

But let us see, Ponz also saw a similar work in the parish church of San Andrés in the same city: ‘There is in the Sacristy [parish church of San Andrés in Valladolid] a small bas-relief of the Descent from the Cross, the work of Juni’ (Ponz, 1781, pp. 81-82). González Moral included this piece in his study of the most notable works in Valladolid, which was printed in 1864 (González Moral, p. 36). The relief in the parish church of San Andrés is also mentioned by García-Valladolid: ‘there is a half-relief in wood representing the Saviour descending from the cross, attributed by many to Juan de Juni and by some to Alonso Berruguete’ (García-Valladolid, 1922, p. 41). However, this author reproduces what has been referred to in previous publications, since the fact is that in 1918 this work was no longer in its place, as Juan Agapito y Revilla recorded it, something which caused him some surprise, which is why he tried to gather information on the subject: ‘In dealing with the parish of San Andrés, Ponz noted (XI. 92) that ‘There is in the sacristy a small bas-relief of the Descent from the Cross, the work of Juni’. And in El Indicador de Valladolid (by González Moral. p. 36) it was said that ‘on a chest of drawers in this sacristy, a half-relief is placed on a panel, representing the Saviour Descending from the Cross, a work of great merit, attributed by some to Berruguete and by others to Juní’.  On noticing the coincidence of the subject matter of this work and that of San Martín, as well as the places where they were in both churches, I thought that it was a repeated report by Ponz, mistaking the name of one of the churches; and that the report given by González Moral was based on Ponz's, nothing more. But the antiquarian Don Mariano Chicote told me that, in fact, there was also a relief of the Descent from the Cross in the sacristy of the Church of San Andrés, and that it was sold some time ago. I was not able to meet him’ (Agapito y Revilla, 1918, pp. 259-260). 

We therefore have confirmation of the existence of such a work in the parish church of San Andrés in Valladolid, which was preserved in its sacristy, that it was ‘of great merit’, and that it had been sold some time ago; probably a temporary distance that allowed Mariano Chicote -member of a family saga of artists, also dedicated to the art trade-, to have been aware of it. Such a sale may have taken place at the time when the Victoria & Albert Museum acquired the piece, which took place in 1863; the institution bought it for £4, thanks to the efforts of its purchasing agent John Charles Robinson, who obtained it through the antique dealer José Calcerrada in Madrid. It should be borne in mind that on this trip in 1863 Robinson visited Valladolid, visited the Provincial Museum where there was an extraordinary collection of works by Juni and Berruguete, works that caught his attention and, after this visit, acquired various pieces including a sculpture from the altarpiece of the monastery of San Benito, by Alonso Berruguete, bought in the city of Valladolid, and this relief by Juan de Juni bought from Calcerrada.

Could this relief be the one that was in the parish church of San Andrés and was sold? 

Perhaps, we hypothesise. What is certain is that there are three examples of similar dimensions and subject matter: this one preserved in the V&A Museum, the one in the Diocesan Museum of Valladolid (from the church of San Martín), and the one in the Museum of León. In other collections there are examples with greater differences in size and quality, such as the one in the Camón Aznar collection in Zaragoza or the one in the Museo Nacional de Escultura in Valladolid, in this case with appreciable differences not only in the size and quality of the work, but also in the arrangement of the figures, as they are arranged in the opposite way to this relief which is now in the collection of the V&A Museum in London.  

Description

Relief made of terracotta, polychrome, with a wooden frame, polychrome and gilded, on which appears an inscription alluding to pain and death, taken from the Book of Lamentations, 1, 12. ‘Do you care nothing for all who pass by? Look and see if there is any pain like mine. And why will not the sword pierce your soul too?’

First of all Mary takes in the body of her dead son, completely devastated, so that her body falls parallel to that of Christ. The anatomical study of the inert body is very expressive, practically dislocated in the lap of his mother, who barely manages to grasp it. Both figures appear at the foot of the cross, while in the background a landscape opens up amidst the sky, the city of Jerusalem, in this case inspired by the models of the walled cities known to Juan de Juni. The uneasiness that the figures arouse through the mother's pain and the heavy body of the son, who falls lifeless, is materialised in tremendously expressive forms that place us before us before the most Mannerist Juni. 

Locations

• ca. 1863

  church

  Possible provenance of the Church of San Andrés, Valladolid, Valladolid (Spain)

• 1863

  dealer/antiquarian

  José Calcerrada, Madrid (Spain) *

• 1863

  dealer/antiquarian

  Sir John Charles Robinson, London (United Kingdom) *

• 1863 - present

  museum

  Victoria & Albert Museum, London (United Kingdom)