Spanish school of the seventeenth century. It could be CIEZA, José de (Granada, 1656 - Madrid, 1692). "The Sleeping Child Jesus Oil on panel.

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Old Masters

By Setdart Auction House

Jun 30, 2021

Set Reminder 2021-06-30 08:30:00 2021-06-30 08:30:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Old Masters https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/setdart-auction-house/old-masters-7134
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• Lot Description
  Spanish school of the seventeenth century. It could be CIEZA, José de (Granada, 1656 - Madrid, 1692). "The Sleeping Child Jesus Oil on panel. With vintage frame. Measures: 36 x 34 cm; 60 x 60 cm (frame). Devotional image framed within the Spanish baroque, a scene of great tenderness that seeks to move the spirit of the faithful and exalt their religious sentiment. For this, the painter shows us Jesus as an innocent child, who sleeps unconcerned next to a river fed by two fountains, an element of symbolic character that alludes to Jesus as a source of living waters, which quenches the spiritual thirst. Jesus appears on a bed of white cloths, a color representative of purity, and protected by a red mantle that falls on his head, alluding to the Passion, a veiled symbol of his dramatic destiny. It is therefore a fully symbolic image, very typical of Spanish baroque religiosity. Throughout its history, and especially in the Modern Age, Christian art delighted in projecting the shadow of the cross on the innocent infancy of Jesus. The contrast between the happy unconcern of a child and the horror of the sacrifice to which he was predestined was designed to move hearts. This idea was already familiar to the theologians of the Middle Ages, but the artists of that time expressed it discreetly, either through the worried expression of the Virgin, or through the bunch of grapes that the Child squeezes in his hands. It was especially in the art of the Counter-Reformation that this funeral presentiment of the Passion was expressed by means of transparent allusions. Zurbarán shows the Infant Jesus pricking himself with his finger while braiding a crown of thorns. Murillo, the little St. John the Baptist showing him his cross of reeds. Finally, the theme finds its most moving expression in the theme of the Child Jesus Sleeping on a cross. Because of its formal characteristics we can relate this work to the hand of José de Cieza, a baroque painter active in Granada and Madrid in the second half of the 17th century. Trained in the workshop of his father, the painter Miguel Jerónimo de Cieza, the young artist learned in his early years the Flemish formulas of his father's language, which will be visible in his first works. His art will evolve through the knowledge of Alonso Cano's painting, and finally he will reach a mature language characterized by complex architectural perspectives with small figures. Cieza's works are currently preserved in the Prado Museum, the Diocesan Museum of Huesca, the Royal Chapel of Granada, the Monastery of San Jerónimo, the Museum of Fine Arts of Granada and other public and private collections.
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