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, 1556 or 1562) and John Soan de Goto (Goto, 1578), and the lay brother James Kisai (Haga, Okayama, 1533). Thirty years later, in 1627, they were beatified by Pope Urban VIII and in 1862 they were finally canonised.
These sculptures, by Juan de Mesa and Juan Martínez Montañés, come from the professed house of the Society of Jesus in Seville. Although they bear no date, they were likely commissioned when the martyrs were beatified in 1627, an event that led to their public veneration.
Although none of these works has preserved its iconographic attributes, the Martyrs of Japan are usually depicted with crosses, in memory of their crucifixion, and the spears that killed them. Now restored to their original state, they are displayed as prime examples of the ‘imágenes vestideras’, or statues designed to be dressed, characteristic of so many Sevillian polychromed sculptures.
The Arts of Golden Age Spain and the Hispanic World 