LUIS DE MORALES (Badajoz, 1510/ ) The Virgin of the Yard-winder. Oil on panel 71 x 50.3cm

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1 LUIS DE MORALES (Badajoz, 1510/ ) The Virgin of the Yard-winder Oil on panel 71 x 50.3cm Provenance: Parish Church and Parsonage of Irasondo, Navarre.The present item is catalogued in the inventory of Valuable Items of this church, performed on 25 September 1746, in which it states specifically: It otro de Ntra. Sra. De la Contemplación. Yarza collection, Zaragoza Related Literature: D. ANGULO IÑIGUEZ, Ars Hispaniae, vol.xii, Madrid, 1954, pp I. BÄCKSBACKA, Luis de Morales. Helsinki, J. CAMON AZNAR, Summa Artis, vol.xxiv, Madrid, 1970, pp E. DU GUÉ TRAPIER, Luis de Morales and the Leonardesque influences in Spain, New York, EXHIBITION, Los Hernándos, pintores hispanos del entorno de Leonardo. Catalogue by F. Benito Domenech, J. Gómez and V. Samper. Valencia, J. ORTIZ DE TARANCO, Las tablas de devoción privada de Yáñez y su escuela, in Estudios sobre literatura y arte dedicados al Profesor Emilio Orozco Díaz, Granada, 1975, vol. II, pp J.A. GAYA NUÑO, Luis de Morales, Madrid, I. MATEO GÓMEZ, Flandes, Portugal y Toledo en la obra de Luis de Morales: Las Vírgenes gitanas, Archivo Español de Arte, vol., LXXX, no. 317, 2007, pp R. CH. POST, A History of Spanish Painting. Cambridge, Mass. Vol. XI, A. RODRIGUEZ GUTIERREZ DE CEBALLOS, El mundo espiritual del pintor Luis de Morales, Goya, 1987, pp J.Mª RUIZ MANERO, La pintura italiana del siglo XVI en España. Tomo I: Leonardo y los leonardescos, Madrid, Fundación Universitaria, Española, C. SOLIS, Luis de Morales, Badajoz, The Virgin is shown seated with the naked Infant Christ in her lap, sitting on her right leg. In one hand he holds a yard-winder topped by a cross that he contemplates with a sad, melancholy expression similar to his mother s as both experience a presentiment of

Yarza collection, Zaragoza Related Literature: D. ANGULO IÑIGUEZ, Ars Hispaniae, vol.xii, Madrid, 1954, pp.239-240. I. BÄCKSBACKA, Luis de Morales. Helsinki, 1961. J. CAMON AZNAR, Summa Artis, vol.

2 his future Passion. In his other hand the Christ Child holds the bobbin of the spindle. The Virgin s right hand protectively enfolds him while her foreshortened left hand projects forward in the pictorial space towards the viewer. Crowning her beautiful face, her reddish hair is covered by a thin veil of a delicacy comparable to her eyebrows, lashes and teeth, the latter just visible in her half-open mouth with its expression of grief. She wears a pinkish-mauve tunic with gathered sleeves that reveals the edge of her under-shirt at the neck. Over her tunic is a metallic blue mantle with broad folds. As in many of Morales s compositions, the background is dark and the figures are modelled through light and shade in a manner that recalls Leonardo s chiaroscuro. Morales s composition of The Virgin of the Yard-winder derives from a lost work by Leonardo, painted in 1501 for Florimond Robertet, Secretary to François I of France and known from a description by Pietro della Novella in a letter to Isabella d Este. Numerous contemporary copies were made of it in Italy, notably the one in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch (fig. 1), which some specialists attribute to Leonardo himself. That version was stolen from Drumlaring Castle in Scotland in Another version considered to be by Leonardo and his studio is in a private collection in New York. Fig.1 There are copies of this work by the Hernándos, Valencian painters in Leonardo s studio who must have had first-hand knowledge of it in Florence. It seems likely that Morales would have encountered the composition in Valencia through those artists as he went there when his patron, Juan de Ribera, Bishop of Badajoz, was appointed Archbishop of Valencia. There is a very similar composition by Yáñez de Almedina in the Museo de Bellas artes de Murcia, on deposit from the Museo del Prado (fig. 2). Also attributed to the Hernándos is a high quality version in a private collection in San Sebastian. Similar to these versions but with the additional presence of Saint Joseph, is a work by Yáñéz in the Grether collection in Buenos Aires, although in this case the

Crowning her beautiful face, her reddish hair is covered by a thin veil of a delicacy comparable to her eyebrows, lashes and teeth, the latter just visible in her half-open mouth with its expression

3 Fig.2 Christ Child holds a small bird rather than a yard-winder. Finally, mention should be made of a drawing in the Uffizi in Florence, which is undoubtedly a preparatory study for one of the above-mentioned Valencian versions. Bearing in mind all the above, the success of Leonardo s composition in Spain is evident, firstly with the Hernándos in Valencia and subsequently with Morales. As his other works also reveal, Morales was primarily interested in Leonardo for his technique of sfumato (a subject analysed by E. Du Gué Trapier), undoubtedly via the works of the Valencian painters. What is most striking in Morales s reinterpretation of this subject is his decision to omit the landscape and colouring of the Italian and Valencian versions (with the exception of the one by Yáñez in Buenos Aires) in order to focus the viewer s attention on the figures, a device also found in some compositions by Sebastiano del Piombo. He thus sets them against a dark background, which, combined with the strong chiaroscuro of the figures, achieves a Mannerist drama that reflects literary mysticism of this period, also evident in his Ecce Homo compositions. Attention has been drawn to Morales s dependence on Early Netherlandish painting and to Portuguese and Toledan painting, particularly the late work of Juan Correa de Vivar. This list should be extended with the inclusion of the Valencian painters discussed above. This interrelationship between various schools led Gaya Nuño to define Morales s style as that of an artist of borrowed modes who assimilated other artists work in a curiously innocent, naked manner. Morales placed his skills in the service of a type of religious painting of an intimate spirituality that was in demand by the society of his time and which ultimately looked back to the iconography of the Early Netherlandish painters, albeit characterised by a different, Trentine, expressivity. Relevant comparisons could include Gossaert s Virgin and Child or any anonymous work of that school.

Bearing in mind all the above, the success of Leonardo s composition in Spain is evident, firstly with the Hernándos in Valencia and subsequently with Morales.

4 What might be termed the concept of the concealed Passion that underlies the present work recurs in numerous works by Morales, who was undoubtedly responding to the demands of a client base comprising religious houses, private clients of different social classes and the Church. They included his patron Juan de Ribera, who was later canonised. Within Morales s versions of The Virgin of the Yard-winder the motif that undergoes changes is the position of the Christ Child with regard to the way he moves towards the yard-winder and his pose on the Virgin s lap or legs. The versions closest to the present one, in which he is shown seated upright on the Virgin looking at the cross on the yardwinder, are in Berlin (fig. 3), in the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg (fig. 4) and in the Royal Palace in Madrid. None, however, reveal the quality of the present work in the exquisite definition of the Virgin s long fingers with their pronounced nails and subtly defined knuckles, her beautiful face filled with terrible yet restrained grief, the quality of the depiction of the clothes that complement the harmonious form of the Christ Child, his head tilted to one side and his blue eyes observing the cross-piece of the yard-winder as a portent of his death on the cross. Within Morales s oeuvre the Christ s Child eyes in this panel are only comparable to those in Christ tied to the Column from the same Madrid collection. When discussing Morales s Virgin and Child compositions, Camón Aznar noted that their spiritual intent allows them to be associated with El Greco and that the holy sweetness of the faces is of Italian origin while their sense of suffering mysticism is Spanish. The present Virgin of the Yard-winder from a private Madrid collection is an excellent version of this subject by the artist. It can be considered an important addition to Morales s interpretations of this theme and to his oeuvre as a whole.

Within Morales s versions of The Virgin of the Yard-winder the motif that undergoes changes is the position of the Christ Child with regard to the way he moves towards the yard-winder and his pose on

5 Fig.3 Fig.4 Dr. Isabel Mateo. Doctor in Art History

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