Sculpting Colour

Staged at the same time and in the same space as the monographic exhibition devoted to the painter Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664), with a jointly designed scenography that creates interplay between the two sets of works, the exhibition invites visitors to discover 17th-century Spanish sculpture.

It consists largely of polychrome wooden religious sculptures with striking naturalism, which help us better understand the cultural and religious climate in which the great Spanish painters of the same period worked, first among them Zurbarán, Velázquez and Murillo, at a time when the ties between painting and sculpture were very close. The exhibition will showcase in particular the loan of a complete paso for processions, a monumental ensemble of five life-size sculpted and painted figures dating from the early 17th century, the work of Gregorio Fernández, a great sculptor then active in Valladolid, displayed at eye level to allow the most direct possible viewing. The route continues through several thematic strands: the cult of relics and the role of intercessor saints, dressed statues, the depiction of the sufferings of Christ and the Virgin, private devotion and the Immaculate Conception. Visitors will be able to explore the different uses and meanings of these sculptures, and also better understand their materiality, regional and stylistic variations, and the personalities of the leading sculptors of the period, active in Castile or Andalusia, through other works by Gregorio Fernández, as well as by Alonso Cano, Juan de Mesa, José de Mora, Pedro de Mena, Jerónimo Francisco and Miguel Jerónimo Garciá, José de Arce, Pedro Roldán and Luisa Roldán, one of the rare women artists to have enjoyed a brilliant career at the royal court. Besides the paso Camino del Calvario, the major loans in this exhibition, never before seen in France, include the Cristo de la Luz, also by Gregorio Fernández, a life-size Christ on the Cross with striking naturalism, and the Saint Jean Baptiste, a masterpiece by Alonso Cano. Luisa Roldán's Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist and Pedro de Mena's Immaculate Conception dated 1680, linked to a competition organised by the Bishop of Granada, two recent major acquisitions by the museum, spectacularly restored, will also be presented.