This rare depiction of female nudity in a seventeenth-century Spanish painting speaks to Alonso Cano’s preeminent position at the court. A sculptor by training, Cano created magnificent altarpieces, poignant polychrome sculpture, and refined domestic objects, even as he began to paint. Here, Christ pulls a saint from the underworld while hoisting a banner, symbol of salvation, skyward. But the most unusual aspect of the picture, given its serious religiosity, is the trio of nudes at right. While Eve modestly turns away from the viewer, the glow of her flesh tones against the wash of warm red draws the eye to her sinuously rendered body.
Cano moved to Madrid, the Spanish capital, in 1638, and there was granted access to King Philip IV’s collection of Italian paintings. These included representations of classically inspired nudes that were explicitly discouraged by the Spanish church. The strict regulation of Catholic imagery in effect banished female nudes from Spanish religious art. A royal collection such as Philip IV’s thus served as a locus of study, exchange, and transmission of artistic ideas and techniques, both classical and contemporary.
2025
