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José Risueño 17th century

Spain

Saint Joseph with the

Infant Christ


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José Risueño Circa 1712-1732

Spain

Saint Joseph with the Infant Christ Polychromed Terracotta

Provenance: Collection of Enrique Larreta’s Acelain Estate, Buenos Aires, Argentina

19 x 27 x 24 cm





This terracotta bust of Saint Joseph with the Infant Christ is a previously unpublished work of great

quality, constituting an important addition to the canon of works by José Risueño, the versatile artist from

Granada.

Born in 1665, Risueño is one of the artists who best represents the Baroque sculptural transition from the

17th to the 18th century in the Granada school, where the figures of Alonso Cano and Pedro de Mena

would cast a long shadow on the artists who learnt their trade in that context. This proves particularly

significant in the case of José Risueño, whose work would often hark back to that of the great Granada

master. Risueño learnt the rudiments of wood carving in the workshop of his father, who was a

carpenter. He would complete his sculptural education in that of the brothers José and Diego de Mora,

who took on the baton from Cano and De Mena, while his pictorial training came courtesy of Juan de

Sevilla, also a follower of Cano.

All of this had a decisive effect on Risueño’s style, which makes a clear nod to Cano’s sculptural legacy

both in type of models as well as, understandably, the prototypes of the Mora brothers. With this

background, he would create a highly personal style in which we should highlight his pared-down,

thorough and detailed technical execution, along with his versatility in the range of materials with which

he worked and which he mastered (marble, wood, glued fabrics and clay), which demonstrated his

ability, virtuosity and skill in terms of modelling. His varied and abundant oeuvre, of a fundamentally

religious nature as befitting the characteristics of most of his clientele, and his main patron, the

Archbishop of Granada, Martín de Ascargorta, includes all manner of subjects (devotional, processional,

altarpieces and so on).

It is as such that his small-scale works are of particular significance, especially those in wood or baked

clay, areas in which the sculptor showcased the very best of his art, constituting the very pinnacle of his

output. It is also worth recalling that, as well as a sculptor, he was also a painter and architect. This links

him directly to the very few 17th-century Spanish artists who worked across the three disciplines, of

which we should highlight Alonso Cano and his student Sebastián de Herrera Barnuevo.





Despite the fact that documented evidence has survived for few of his works, a large number of pieces

have been attributed to him on stylistic grounds. A canon which is now going to be joined by this

important work of extraordinary quality and unquestionable authorship.

Risueño created extremely sensitive devotional works, characterised by a sense of contained emotion and

almost mystic expressivity, reminiscent of De Mena, without falling into the more marked dramatism of

José de Mora. His figures are delicate, elegant and serene, delving deep into human and naturalistic

aspects, with self-absorbed expressions, depicting sweet-looking, chubby and lively children with their

hair arranged into unkempt curls. As was the case with Cano, he undertook to execute the polychromy of

his sculptures himself, demonstrating great technical skill, bringing out a sense of naturalism through

carnations and fabrics, opting for matt-toned colours.

The series of group sculptures executed in clay, whose polychromy was normally undertaken by him,

including the work we are examining here, constitute the expression of his most personal style of

extraordinary delicacy and sweetness. His markedly intimate and emotive works, in which the sculptor

tended to combine the figures of the Virgin, Saint Joseph and Infant Christ, with great sensitivity and

tenderness through the suggestive language of hand gestures and affectional poses, create images of

profound devotional meaning.

With regard to the work we have before us here, its link to the full-length Saint Joseph with the Christ

Child kept at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, which, with slight differences, looks practically

identical (Fig. 1), and which was purchased by the museum in Granada in 1863, is absolutely obvious.

Alongside this one, we should also mention other exquisite small-scale baked clay group pieces with

which it bears a close resemblance both in sculptural concept and type and models of child, depicted with

highly-characteristic looks and expressions that repeat throughout. Of these we might mention the Rest

on the Flight into Egypt in the Museum of Fine Arts in Granada (Fig. 2), the Virgin with the Christ Child

and the Infant Saint John from the National Museum of Sculpture (Fig. 3), which originally came from the

Franciscan convent of San Antón in Granada, and, addressing the same subject, but with a different

interpretation, at Granada’s Rodríguez Acosta Foundation (Fig. 4). In addition to this small number of

group pieces, a large number of Infant Saint John the Baptist works survive, such as those of the church of





San Francisco in Priego, the convent of Santa Paula in Seville, and at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum.

(Fig. 5)

Fig 1. José Risueño, Saint Joseph with the Christ Child, Victoria & Albert Museum in London

Fig 2. José Risueño, Rest on the Flight into Egypt, Museum of Fine Arts in Granada





Fig. 4. The Virgin with the Christ Child and the Infant Saint John, Granada’s Rodríguez Acosta Foundation

Fig. 3 The Virgin with the Christ Child and the Infant Saint John, National Museum of Sculpture

Fig. 5. Infant Saint John, Victoria & Albert Museum in London Museum





On another note, it is worth considering the importance of the provenance of the work, originating as it

does from the collection of the Argentinian writer Enrique Larreta (1873-1961), at his Acelain estate. In all

likelihood this terracotta piece was bought by the writer himself and kept at the famous Andalusian-style

villa which the writer, having fallen in love with Spain, built between 1922 and 1924, to a design by the

architect Martin Noel. The architectural style of the main house, however, is reminiscent of the Spanish

Renaissance period under Philip II, so admired by Larreta. Both its architecture and decoration reflect

Mudejar art, using the Generalife in Granada as their model.

The occasional photo has survived in which one can appreciate the terracotta work in the main living

room, decorated to the Castilian tastes of the 16th century, displayed on a table (Fig. 6). In the inventory

Fig. 6a





of pieces of art at Acelain compiled by Josefina, one of Larreta’s daughters, the piece was listed attributed

to the celebrated sculptor Luisa Roldán, “La Roldana”.

We should also bear in mind that, following Larreta’s death in 1961, his children sold his Buenos Aires

house to the City Council with the purpose of turning it into a museum of Spanish art, donating their

father’s collection of works and pieces of furniture. When the museum opened its doors in October 1962,

the majority of its pieces were from the 15th to the 18th century, and formed part of the writer’s private

collection, as did this magnificent Saint Joseph with the Infant Christ.

Bibliography:

- Boloqui Larraya, Belén, “Obras inéditas del escultor y pintor granadino José Risueño en el convento de Capuchinas

de Tudela en Navarra”, Príncipe de Viana, 11, 1998, pp. 51-63.

- García Luque Manuel, “José Risueño, un artista versátil al servicio de la catedral de Granada”, Laboratorio de Arte,

25, 1, 2013 pp. 433-454.

- Gila Medina, Lázaro, “Un espléndido retrato inédito de José Risueño: el del obispo D. Rodrigo Marín y Rubio”,

Laboratorio de Arte, 26, 2014, pp. 447-456.

Fig. 6b





- Juan Jesús López-Guadalupe Múñoz, Juan José, (ed.), José Risueño y su época, Granada, 2019 (in press).

- Orozco Díaz, Emilio, “Los barros de Risueño y la estética granadina”, Goya, 14, 1956, pp. 76-82.

- Orozco Díaz, Emilio “Unas obras de Risueño y de Mora desconocidas (datos y comentarios para el estudio de un

tema olvidado de la imaginería granadina)”, Archivo Español de Arte, 175, 1971, pp. 233-257.

- Pérez Morales, José Carlos, “Saint Didacus of Alcalá, José Risueño Alconchel”, Faces, Coll & Cortés, Madrid-London,

2013, pp. 214-219.

- Requena Bravo de Laguna, José Luis, “Una Santa Teresa, firmada y fechada por José Risueño”, Cuadernos de Arte de

la Universidad de Granada, 37, 2006, pp. 413-418.

- Sánchez-Mesa Martín, Domingo, “Nuevas obras de Luisa Roldán y José Risueño en Londres y Granada”, Archivo

Español de Arte, 160, 1967, pp. 325-332.

- Sánchez-Mesa Martín, Domingo, José Risueño. Escultor y pintor granadino, 1665-1732, Granada, 1972.

ÁLVARO PASCUAL CHENEL



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