Lot 33: Ecce Homo

Luis de Morales, el Divino (Badajaoz c. 1515 - 1586?)
Ecce Homo
with inscription 'Divino. Morales fecit' (on the reverse)
oil on panel
28¾ x 20½ in. (73.1 x 52.1 cm.)
in a 17th century Spanish carved and painted frame

This recently rediscovered and beautifully preserved panel, is a masterpiece by Luis de Morales, known as 'el Divino.' The soubriquet, which seems to have been in use during the artist's lifetime, makes reference to the rarified nature of his best-known works, which exemplify the intellectual tastes of the ecclesiastical elite in sixteenth-century Spain.

Having produced several altarpieces early on in his native Extremadura and in Portugal, in his maturity Morales concentrated on the production of small-scale devotional panels, with a predilection for scenes of the Virgin and Child, the Pietà and the Passion of Christ, of which the present work is a characteristic example. These precious objects were intended as aids to meditation, the direct pictorial equivalent of the spiritual writings of contemporary Spanish mystics, including Fray Luis de Granada and St John of Avila. They would have appealed to a highly sophisticated clientele, such as Juan de Ribera, another prominent mystic, who was bishop of Badajoz, later beatified, and whose portrait by Morales is in the Prado (see I. Bäcksbacka, Luis de Morales , Helsinki, 1962, p. 162, no. 21, fig. 57). In these intimate works, Morales typically portrays half-length or bust-length figures set in stark relief against unmodulated jet-black backgrounds. This ascetic device, which concentrates and intensifies the emotional content of the image, mimics Italian paintings on slate, a support not commonly used in sixteenth-century Spain - Morales had in fact copied Sebastiano del Piombo's Christ Bearing the Cross , painted on slate, now in the Prado, in a work in the Colegio del Patriarca in Valencia (Bäcksbacka, op. cit. , p. 166, no. 37, fig. 76). The exceptional state of conservation of the present Ecce Homo displays this slate-like effect to full advantage.

Ostensibly, Morales' output of these devotional panels is quite extensive, an indication of their popularity. However, the majority of the paintings given to him are inferior repetitions of prototypes done by studio assistants or imitators, and there is even much inconsistency among the eighty-six works listed as autograph in Bäcksbacka, the only comprehensive monograph to date. The present painting is a unique composition, and its high quality and somewhat larger than typical size indicate it must certainly have been painted for an important patron. The subtle modelling of the figure and the robe, the attention paid to such details as Christ's hair and beard, and the execution of His hands, the rope and the reed all demonstrate Morales' fully autograph execution. In Morales' Mocking of Christ in the Real Academia de San Fernando, Madrid (fig. 1), the central figure displays a remarkable resemblance to the present work.

The issue of chronology has always been confusing in Morales' oeuvre - there being only one extant dated work: the early Virgen del Pajarito of 1546, in the church of San Agustín in Madrid (see Bäcksbacka, op. cit ., p. 149, no. 1, fig. 1). Nevertheless the above-mentioned Real Academia painting is generally thought to be from the mid-1560s, and a similar date seems likely for the present Ecce Homo .

We are grateful to Dr. Isabel Mateos for confirming the attribution of this painting to Luis de Morales from photographs. Dr. Mateos will be including this work in her forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist. We are also grateful to Dr. William B. Jordan for endorsing the attribution, following first-hand inspection.