Cristóvão de Figueiredo (c. 1490-c. 1555) and Diogo de Contreiras (c. 1500-1563), Attrib.Royal Painting StudioOil on oak panelLisbon, ca. 1530Restored at Edmundo Silva Workshop, Lisbon, ca. 1970121x59 cmA Bella ManieraVítor SerrãoArt HistorianProfessor at the School of Arts and Humanities of LisbonARTIS-IHA-FLULThe ‘Resurrection of Christ’ herewith described, with provenance from a private collection in São João do Estoril, near Lisbon (l), is a prime testimony to Lisbon produced art under the royal patronage of King João III.Nothing is known about its origin, but it is unquestionable that it was once part of an altarpiece composed of various other scenes of the ‘Passion of Christ’, which was eventually dismantled from a now extinct and unidentified convent. The number 66, painted in black on the back of the painting, together with a red wax seal of an unknown proprietor (m), suggest 19th century ownership and imply that the painting (most certainly considered as it was current practice in the 1800s, a “Portuguese primitive from the Grão Vasco School”), might have belonged to an important private collection, as can be inferred by its high inventory number and by the quality of the painting itself.It remains a mystery, considering the stupendous quality of the panel and its exceptional execution, how it had remained completely unknown to Old Master’s specialists and scholars until the end of the last century, and that it was not even referred in the literature about art auction sales and domestic collecting. Such is indeed an astonishing and unexplained void.The painting’s importance was recognised on the occasion of a 1999 International Seminar at the José de Figueiredo Institute, in Lisbon, after a preliminary assessment by Art Historian Dagoberto L. Markl and by the undersigned. The assumption that it represented a precocious work by Diogo de Contreiras was at once accepted as viable, based on affinities of style, of models and of execution, when compared with other paintings of undoubted authorship by the same artist, such as those from the churches of São Silvestre of Unhos (1537-1538), of São Quintino of Serramena (ca. 1540), and of Santa Maria of Almoster (1542-45) (n). The manner of portraying the heads (of the soldiers on the lower section) and the characteristic treatment of hands for instance, find similarities in the above mentioned Contreiras paintings, allowing for the authorship attribution of at least a substantial part of this ‘Resurrection’. As we have written in 1999, “it was only from that moment onwards that the panel was granted its study in the historical-artistic context of Portuguese paintings dating from the reign of King João III, and was hence brought stylistically close to the ‘first period’ of the painter Diogo de Contreiras (ca. 1500-1568), considered by Joaquim Oliveira Caetano, the key personality of the generation that marked the twilight of the late Renaissance canons and the rising of the new language of International Mannerism” (o).We are indeed in the presence of a painting of depurated artistic conception, evident brushstroke elegance, with figures and other plastic richness’s, as well as weaponry, architectures, and backgrounds, distributed on a spatial organization that adheres to rules of Renaissance perspective. In addition to this exemplary effect there is also obvious elegance of execution, so much so in the drafting of the human figures (particularly the soldiers sleeping by the open tomb, with their suits of armour of Dutch ornamentation) as well as in the transparency of atmospheres, the mastery of colours, the poetry of the landscape background to the left (emphasizing the detail of the Noli me tangere - the apparition of the resuscitated Jesus to Mary Magdalene by the fountain in the garden), an in the general unearthly light effects that shroud the whole scene.If it is certain that Jesus Christ’s pose over the tomb confirms full adherence to an orderly and precise canon of elegance that finds acceptance in the paintings produced by the Lisbon Royal Studio, directed by the painter Jorge Afonso and continued by his followers (see the Resurrection of Christ from the Monastery of Jesus in Setúbal, attributed to Jorge Afonso (p), that from the altarpiece of Funchal’s Cathedral, produced in the Royal Studio (q), and that from the former altarpiece of the Monastery of the Santíssima Trindade, by Garcia Fernandes (1537), now at the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Lisbon, as well as that of the Monastery of Ferreirim, from 1533-34, by his followers Cristóvão de Figueiredo and Garcia Fernandes (r)), it is also clear that the excellence of drawing of the three soldiers, the one on the right with remarkable expression and surprised gesture, the ones on the left still asleep, is assertive of a new, clearly Mannerist dynamic, under which they were conceived, and one which evidences differing modelling processes and a formal boldness that overcomes the normative seemingly suggested by the basic compositional model. Particularly attractive is the pose of the sleeping soldier leaning on his helmet, with a wonderful facial expression, and the drafting of the hand on which the face rests, which is repeated on the panels from Unhos and São Quintino. On the other side the powerful surprised expression of the soldier on the right-hand side has an almost portrait-like quality.In other words, to a model within the Jorge Afonso tradition, that softly merges the Northern European influences from Bruges and Antwerp, was juxtaposed a new Italian breeze, that is evident in the Mannerist resourcefulness with which the proposed model was, in practice, executed. Such incongruity values even more this painting, by suggesting that it might relate to an early commission, from circa 1530, faithful to the canons of the Royal Painting Studio, but painted by a younger artist of that “school” that was familiar with works by Cristóvão de Figueiredo and Garcia Fernandes. It is thus understandable why, amongst other details, the marble tomb, close to which the soldiers sleep, includes in its decoration two classical tondi depicting, on the left, ‘Joseph thrown into the pit’ and on the right, ‘Jonah being swallowed by the whale’, both themes precisely featured in the renowned ‘Deposition in the Tomb’ panel by Cristóvão de Figueiredo (1522-1530), originally from Coimbra’s Monastery of Santa Cruz and now at the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, in Lisbon. The presence of these two circular medallions featuring episodes from the Old Testament, beyond reflecting a discourse of association of the figure of Jesus Christ with themes from those texts, according to the system of biblical conformity that Christian Humanism then pursued, does also evidence that the artist that executed the essential of this painting was acquainted with models from Cristóvão de Figueiredo’s workshop, and had learned under the light of the so called “Masters of Ferreirim”, albeit with enough originality to free himself of such tutelage and assert his own style and individuality. The result is indeed glaring: the Renaissance compositive order giving place, with greater clarity in the lower section of the painting, to the restlessness, whims, and formal elongations of the Mannerism. A Bella Maniera perceived in fact by two approaches; the Romanised Northern fiamminghi (Jan Van Scorel, for instance) and the Rafaelesque tenderness that, if it is already suggested in Garcia Fernandes, it has here a deeper meaning of appropriation. […]Full text available at https://veritas.art/en/lot/royal-painting-studio-628630212/?chosen=1
