Monthly Archives: Feb 2025

Luisa Roldán was born in Seville, the daughter of sculptor Pedro Roldán and his wife Teresa de Ortega. She was taught by her father, alongside her siblings, how to draw, utilize clay to shape figures and finally sculpt or carve in wood. She became an apprentice in her father’s workshop. Also working within the workshopContinue reading “The struggles of a woman sculptor”

To celebrate ‘La Día de Andalucia’ I am highlighting works by Luisa Roldán (1652 – 1706). Known also as La Roldana, Luisa is the earliest woman sculptor documented in Spain and recognised for being one of the few women artists to have maintained a studio outside the convents in Golden Age Spain. These works, allContinue reading “La Roldana”

Have you ever thought what it might be like to meet a living saint and perhaps share a meal and a conversation? This was the experience of Doña Guiomar (far left), a wealthy widow who lived in Avila in the mid 16th century. She welcomed into her house leading religious figures of the time andContinue reading “Supper with the Saints”

On 5 Feburary 1597, a group of twenty-six Christians were executed by crucifixion in Nagasaki, Japan. Twenty of them were Japanese, both monks and laymen. Most of the monks were Franciscans, but not all of them. They included the three Jesuits, born in Japan and converts to Catholicism, presented here: the monks Paul Miki (Kyoto,Continue reading “Imágenes Vestideras”

A headline in The Times newspaper recently claimed ‘Spain falls back in love’ with Baroque polychromed sculpture, citing a number of spectacular exhibitions that can currently be seen in the cities of Valladolid and Madrid. I thought we might therefore spend some time looking at this phenomenon and the artists and artworks from seventeenth centuryContinue reading “Spain ‘falls back in love’ with Baroque polychromed sculpture”

One of the undeniable qualities of Spanish polychrome sculpture is its ability viscerally to engage the viewer’s emotions, often using a realism that can be difficult to look upon. The most harrowing example of this is the figure of the Recumbent Christ developed by Gregorio Fernández (1576-1636). In this versions from the Prado the RecumbentContinue reading “The raw emotion of Gregorio Fernández’s Recumbent Christs”