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Collections

Antonio de Torres
The Elevation of the Cross (La elevación de la cruz)1718

On view:
Geffen Galleries
Oil painting of the crucifixion, with multiple figures lifting or steadying a large wooden cross bearing an INRI tablet, surrounded by mourners and Roman soldiers
Oil painting of a crucifixion scene; a male figure on a wooden cross bearing an 'INRI' tablet is supported by two men below, while a crowd including a woman in blue robes and armored soldiers on horseback fills the background, rendered with dramatic chiaroscuro and warm flesh tones against a stormy sky.
Oil painting, close-up detail of two bare-chested men supporting a pale draped figure against a wooden cross, rendered with smooth academic brushwork and warm chiaroscuro; a helmeted figure visible at left edge.
Oil painting, crowded scene with several figures in the foreground: a woman in a blue veil with hands clasped gazes upward, flanked by a youth in red-orange garments and a bare-shouldered man with bowed head; armored soldiers and a white horse visible in the background, rendered with smooth brushwork and warm chiaroscuro.
Oil painting of two male figures in close composition; a bare-chested bearded man carries a large wooden beam while a second figure in red and green drapery pulls a chain attached to the beam, set against a dark rocky landscape with loose, blended brushwork.
Detail of an oil painting showing a painted inscription in cursive Latin script reading "Antt.º de Torres. f.it 1718" against a dark brown background.
Artist or Maker
Antonio de Torres
Mexico, 1667-1731
Title
The Elevation of the Cross (La elevación de la cruz)
Date Made
1718
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
Unframed: 66 15/16 × 83 1/16 in. (170 × 211 cm); framed: 73 3/4 × 90 3/8 × 2 in. (187.33 × 229.55 × 5.08 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of the 2016 Collectors Committee, with additional funds provided by Kelvin Davis
Accession Number
M.2016.149
Classification
Paintings
Collecting Area
Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes

The Elevation of the Cross depicts one of the most dramatic moments in Christ’s life, when his tormentors strain to lift up the cross. The Virgin Mary and Christ’s disciples look away, disconsolate, while Roman soldiers behind them usher in the two thieves about to be crucified next to Jesus. By spotlighting the faces of Christ and the Virgin and blending the paint to a high finish (in contrast to the more impressionistic brushstrokes employed for most of the figures), Antonio de Torres cleverly emphasized their shared sorrow and effectively connected them in the viewer’s eye and imagination.

Torres was part of the generation of artists who propelled a major pictorial shift in Mexico in the early eighteenth century. As a member of the Third Order of Saint Francis, he also profited from his close ties with the Franciscans, producing a large number of paintings for their institutions in the rich mining towns of San Luis Potosí and Zacatecas in north-central Mexico. He created this monumental painting as part of a Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) series for the Franciscan convent of San Luis Potosí, one of the largest and most opulent religious monuments in all of Mexico. The church was fractioned and dismantled in the period between Mexico’s wars of independence and the country’s revolution in the nineteenth century, accounting for the dispersal of many of the original artworks.

Ilona Katzew

2024

Provenance
Templo de San Francisco de Asís, San Luis Potosí, Mexico, 1718; Joaquín Arguinzoniz y Díez Gutiérrez (1845–1911), San Luis Potosí, 1903 (property shipped to Durango, Spain, c. 1914); by inheritance to Antonio Manuel Arguinzoniz Garay Artabe (b. 1852, Durango) and María del Carmen Arguinzoniz y Olalde (1886–1971, Bilbao, Spain); by inheritance to her daughter María Begoña Díaz de Mendívil Arguinzoniz (1923– 2015, b. Vitoria, Spain, d. Madrid); Caylus Anticuario SA, Madrid, 2015; LACMA, 2016.
Selected Bibliography
  • Katzew, Ilona, ed. Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici. Exh. Cat. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Mexico City: Fomento Cultural Banamex; New York: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2017.
  • 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.

  • Ilona Katew, “New Acquisition: Antonio de Torres, The Elevation of the Cross (Elevación de la cruz),” Unframed, April 25, 2016, https://unframed.lacma.org/2016/04/25/new-acquisition-antonio-de-torres-elevation-cross-elevación-de-la-cruz.

  • Joseph Fronek, Ilona Katzew, “Antonio de Torres’s The Elevation of the Cross: History and Conservation,” June 18, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU8m_T6X170.

Selected Exhibition History
  • Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici . Sunday, November 19, 2017 - Sunday, March 18, 2018
  • Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici . April 24 - July 22, 2018
  • 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

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