This month, Montilla will relive its special history of association with the Prado Museum. It will be in the presence of Christ of the Tablepreserved in the parish church of Santiago Apóstol, in the exhibition entitled “Shaking hands. Sculpture and color in the Golden Age.
A few minutes before the Cristo de la Tabla headed towards the National Pinacoteca, the mayor of Montilla, Rafael Lamasand the first deputy mayor, Lidia Bujalance, accompanied the priest Fernando Suárez and the director of the Diocesan Library and Museums of Córdoba, María José Muñoz, in the work of dismantling this work of art created in the mid-16th century . , as reported by the municipal council in a press release.
By anonymous author, Christ of the Table is “an image painted in oil on a flat support”. woodenon the obverse and reverse, an openwork cross in baroque gilded wood from the end of the 17th century, which is currently mounted on an oil painted canvas and also dated from the 17th century, which completes the scene of a Calvary with the Virgin Mary and Saint John, accompanied by some Passionist angels.
Paternity
The historian Antonio Luis Jiménez, student of the piece, points out that the Christ of the Table was made for the Chapel of Soulsthe space in the parish of Santiago that the baptistery occupies today, and was “probably painted by one of the artists working in Montilla at that time: Francisco Castillejo, Baltasar el Águila or Pedro Delgado”.
Linked to the figure of San Juan de Ávila, this painting had great devotion until the 18th century in Montilla, it even went out in procession through the streets of the city. And three years ago, he was the subject of a restoration by the Government of Andalusia.
The mayor indicated that “for Montilla it is great news that the Cristo de la Tabla, as was previously the case with the Cristo de Zacatecas, also from this parish of Santiago, is part of an important exhibition in one of the best museums in the world.”
Likewise, the advisor thanked and congratulated the diocese of Cordoba for this temporary mission and “to all the people who, over time, have managed to ensure that this Christ of the Table reaches us in its current conservation conditions”.
He underlined the responsibility of all administrations, including civil ones, to “support this type of exhibitions and initiatives which today guarantee the conservation of a piece of history and Heritage of Montilla trip to Madrid to promote and disseminate the city.
The exhibition at the Prado, curated by Manuel Arias Martínez, will illustrate the tireless search for realism in Spanish Renaissance and Baroque art in everything related to the envelope of the figure.
It will show the integration nature of painting in sculpture and its triumph in the Hispanic world, based on the Greco-Latin tradition and will highlight the value of the three-dimensional as an instrument of persuasion.
The exhibition can be visited from November 19 and until March 2, 2025, and brings together around a hundred works, paintings, engravings and sculptures to show that the third dimension was the formula for making the deity more credible, which produced the desired effect when interacting with color to become more plausible.
