Attributed to Juan Rodríguez Juárez
The Miracles of Saint Salvador of Horta (Milagros del beato Salvador de Horta)circa 1720

On view:

Geffen Galleries

Oil painting of a gray-robed friar holding a cross and preaching to a large crowd of sick and kneeling figures in a rocky landscape, with an apparition of a woman and child on clouds above

Oil painting of a woman in blue mantle and rose-colored robe seated on clouds, holding an infant with one hand raised, set against a gray-blue clouded sky with rocky landscape below.

Oil painting landscape detail showing a white church with a steepled tower nestled on a rocky hillside, surrounded by dark trees against a brooding blue-grey mountainous background.

Oil painting, detail of a crowded figural scene with multiple figures in muted blues, reds, and ochres. A woman in white wrappings stands at center holding a staff; nearby figures include a woman cradling an infant, a young child, and a veiled woman gazing upward. Dense overlapping figures recede into a shadowed background, rendered with soft Baroque brushwork.

Artist or Maker: Attributed to Juan Rodríguez Juárez
Mexico, 1675-1728
Title: The Miracles of Saint Salvador of Horta (Milagros del beato Salvador de Horta)
Date Made: circa 1720
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Unframed: 54 5/16 × 43 11/16 in. (138 × 111 cm); framed: 65 3/4 × 55 1/2 × 3 1/4 in. (167.01 × 140.97 × 8.26 cm)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund
Accession Number: M.2008.32
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes: Saint Salvador of Horta appears on the steps of a church, offering blessings to a visibly suffering man while a crowd of pilgrims await their turn. Salvador, a Franciscan friar born in Spain in 1520, was renowned for his asceticism, humility, and miraculous deeds, especially healing the sick. His cult was recognized as early as 1606, and he was beatified in 1711 by Pope Clement XI (r. 1700–1721). This painting was likely commissioned to commemorate the beatification, perhaps as part of a larger series devoted to the lives of saints. The artist, Juan Rodríguez Juárez, descended from a long line of distinguished painters. His grandfather, José Juárez (1617–1661/62), created a monumental painting of the same subject based on a print after a work by the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640). Rodríguez Juárez’s version references his grandfather’s work and the Rubens composition, thus paying homage to a long line of local and European artists. Yet he endowed his painting with an entirely new sensibility by streamlining the composition, combining cool and warm tonalities, and introducing an overall gentler style. It was this sort of modernizing gambit that ensured his reputation as a leading painter of his time.

Ilona Katzew

2024
Provenance: Piasa Auction House, Paris, March 28, 2001, lot 11; Caylus Anticuario SA, Madrid, 2001; LACMA, 2008.
Selected Bibliography: Katzew, Ilona. “Valiant Styles: New Spanish Painting, 1700–1785.” In Painting in Latin America, 1550–1820, edited by Luisa Elena Alcalá and Jonathan Brown. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014, pp. 148–203.
Katzew, Ilona, ed. Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800: Highlights from LACMA’s Collection. Exh. Cat. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: DelMonico Books/D.A.P., 2022.
Selected Exhibition History: Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 12, 2022 - October 30, 2022
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. October 20, 2023 - January 28, 2024
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 22, 2024 - September 08, 2024

Related Exhibitions

Attributed to Juan Rodríguez Juárez
The Miracles of Saint Salvador of Horta (Milagros del beato Salvador de Horta)circa 1720

On view:

Geffen Galleries

Artist or Maker: Attributed to Juan Rodríguez Juárez
Mexico, 1675-1728
Title: The Miracles of Saint Salvador of Horta (Milagros del beato Salvador de Horta)
Date Made: circa 1720
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Unframed: 54 5/16 × 43 11/16 in. (138 × 111 cm); framed: 65 3/4 × 55 1/2 × 3 1/4 in. (167.01 × 140.97 × 8.26 cm)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund
Accession Number: M.2008.32
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes: Saint Salvador of Horta appears on the steps of a church, offering blessings to a visibly suffering man while a crowd of pilgrims await their turn. Salvador, a Franciscan friar born in Spain in 1520, was renowned for his asceticism, humility, and miraculous deeds, especially healing the sick. His cult was recognized as early as 1606, and he was beatified in 1711 by Pope Clement XI (r. 1700–1721). This painting was likely commissioned to commemorate the beatification, perhaps as part of a larger series devoted to the lives of saints. The artist, Juan Rodríguez Juárez, descended from a long line of distinguished painters. His grandfather, José Juárez (1617–1661/62), created a monumental painting of the same subject based on a print after a work by the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640). Rodríguez Juárez’s version references his grandfather’s work and the Rubens composition, thus paying homage to a long line of local and European artists. Yet he endowed his painting with an entirely new sensibility by streamlining the composition, combining cool and warm tonalities, and introducing an overall gentler style. It was this sort of modernizing gambit that ensured his reputation as a leading painter of his time.

Ilona Katzew

2024
Provenance: Piasa Auction House, Paris, March 28, 2001, lot 11; Caylus Anticuario SA, Madrid, 2001; LACMA, 2008.
Selected Bibliography: Katzew, Ilona. “Valiant Styles: New Spanish Painting, 1700–1785.” In Painting in Latin America, 1550–1820, edited by Luisa Elena Alcalá and Jonathan Brown. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014, pp. 148–203.
Katzew, Ilona, ed. Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800: Highlights from LACMA’s Collection. Exh. Cat. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: DelMonico Books/D.A.P., 2022.
Selected Exhibition History: Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 12, 2022 - October 30, 2022
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. October 20, 2023 - January 28, 2024
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 22, 2024 - September 08, 2024