Title

Saint John the Evangelist

sculptor

Siloé, Gil de (Burgos. Active 1480-1500)

Generic classification

Object

Date

Century

Cultural context / style

Dimensions

Material

Technique

Iconography / Theme

Provenance

Current location

Inventory Number in Current Collection

Object history

Monastery of Fresdelval (Burgos), from 1500.

In 1916 in Paris, Bacri Frères.

Bought in 1917 by the museum from Bacri Frères.

Description

Juan de Padilla was the son of Pedro López de Padilla (c. 1440-c. 1508), lord of Calatañazor, Santa Gadea, Sotopalacios and Villaveta and adelantado mayor of Castile and Isabel Pacheco, daughter of the Marquis of Villena. Squire of Isabel I of Castile, he died in a skirmish against the Muslims in the Vega of Granada on May 16, 1491, at the age of nineteen, indicating before his death his desire to be buried in the Hieronymite monastery of Fresdelval, near Burgos, of which his family held the patronage and to which he named as heir. The mother of the deceased commissioned his monumental tomb to Gil de Siloé, who did not finish it until 1500, undoubtedly due to the high number of commissions that reached the sculptor's workshop, who had been working since 1486 on the royal tombs of the Carthusian monastery of Miraflores (Burgos).

The structure, of considerable dimensions, was made of alabaster, a prestigious material used for the most important clients, but which had also been used for the tomb of Gómez Manrique and Sancha de Rojas, located in the presbytery of the church of Fresdelval, in one of whose side walls the tomb of Juan de Padilla was to be placed.

The work presented an outstanding architectural treatment, in the form of a monumental doorway under whose angled opening was placed the praying statue accompanied by a page, a composition reminiscent of that of the tomb of Prince Alfonso in the Cartuja de Miraflores and which had recently begun to be tested in Spanish tombs, the first case being that of the bishop of Cuenca Lope de Barrientos (Medina del Campo, Museo de las Ferias) by Egas Cueman around 1447-1454, who would use this typology again in the tomb of Alonso de Velasco and Isabel de Quadros in the chapel of Santa Ana of the monastery of Guadalupe (Cáceres), contracted in 1467.

The back of the arcosolium was occupied by panels of flamboyant tracery before which stood out a relief of the Lamentation over the body of the dead Christ sheltered by a canopy, the work of Felipe Bigarny, and two angels with a cartouche identifying the deceased. The structure was flanked by buttresses that ended in pinnacles and housed statues of saints, culminating, as Manuel de Assas indicated in 1878 (p. 10) with "an area of tracery and then another of spires and canopies, the central one of these rising higher than the other six, having its lower part at the same height as the upper part of the others. The small spires form compartments in which it is still recognized to have existed statues", for what surely they would have been extracted from their location shortly before. It is from these six spaces that the James the Less preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the three apostles in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston come from, which would probably be presided over by a Christ in majesty that would occupy the central house, following an arrangement that may recall that of some altarpieces of the 14th and 15th centuries, such as the fragments from Beaune, today shared between the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Musée du Louvre.

The work showed Siloé's ability to create variations on the same typology, the arcosolium tomb, both in its general arrangement and in its details. Sometimes he included scenes in relief in the background, as in the tomb of Archdeacon Fernando Diez de Fuentepelayo (Burgos Cathedral), a work generally attributed to him, other times he included panels of leaves, as in the tomb of the infant Don Alfonso in the Cartuja de Miraflores, or tracery in the present case.

In 1870 the tomb was transferred to the Museum of Burgos, without incorporating the upper part. When it was moved to its current location in the Casa de Miranda, it was mounted without the arch's angled soffit, which it still conserved in the Arco de Santa María site, and changing the location of some of the panels at the back, as can be seen by checking their current arrangement with that shown in the engraving by E. Stüler, according to a drawing from 1818. Stüler according to a drawing of 1862 by Francisco Aznar y García (Madrid, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, MA-0144) or the photograph taken around 1865 (Madrid, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, FOT-00071), in spite of the fact that the Central Commission of Monuments in session of June 18, 1870 indicated that "In view of an official letter from the Commission of Monuments of Burgos, regarding the efforts to achieve the restoration of the arch of Santa María, relative to the efforts to achieve the seizure of the remains of the tombs of the Manriques de Padilla that existed in the ex-Monastery of Fres-del-Val, it was agreed to thank them and that their zeal be encouraged so that the tombs be placed in a dignified manner, respecting as much as possible the carving and sculpture" (Madrid, Archivo de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Comisión Central de Monumentos Históricos y Artísticos. Proceedings. 1870, p. 77).

The image of St. John the Evangelist shows the apostle standing, dressed in a shirt, tunic held by a cincture and a cloak closed by a brooch, blessing with his right hand while with his left hand he holds the chalice from which the dragon-shaped poison comes out, in a common iconography at the end of the Middle Ages. The saint seems to walk towards the viewer with his right leg forward and his figure presents a very well resolved torsion, twisting his torso and head slightly to the right. His physiognomy is well characterized, presenting small and slightly slanted eyes and a square chin, as is usual in Gil de Siloé. The broadness of the folds and their angular character confer solemnity to the figure while contrasting with the sinuous lines of her hair, treated with great detail. The collaboration of the workshop in a work that was to be placed at a great height was logical, but in spite of this, the hands and the face have been worked with great detail. A somewhat more hurried execution can be appreciated in the folds of the lower part of the mantle, without detracting from the general quality of the image.

Locations

• 1500 - XIX^th c.

  monastery

  Nuestra Señora del Fresdelval Monastery, Burgos, Fresdelval (Spain)

• 1916 - 1917

  dealer/antiquarian

  Bacri Frères, Paris (France) *

• 1917 - present

  museum

  Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (United States)