San Fernando of Castile

1720-1740

Name(s) currently unknown

Denver, CO, USA, Denver Art Museum (current location)

This life-size sculpture of a saintly Spanish king Fernando III (1198-1252) was likely once part of a large retable (retablo), perhaps an Altar de los Reyes (Altar of Kings), devoted to royal saints. The preeminent Altar de los Reyes still stands behind the main altar in Mexico City’s cathedral. This statue probably formed part of the Altar de los Reyes in the cathedral of Queretaro, a prominent city in New Spain. San Fernando appears here as a handsome young man, fit and able to lead his men in battle to defend their Christian faith and state.

Ferdinand was considered a beneficent and highly accomplished king. He ruled from 1217-1252 and led campaigns against Muslims in Spain, and such campaigns to spread Christianity to “pagans” were models for the Spanish conquest of the New World. He wears a clasp in the shape of a pomegranate (“grenada” in Spanish) on his shoulder, a reference to the Muslim regions of southern Spain. The orb topped with a cross that he carries symbolizes Christ’s triumph over the world. The original context of the statue may have been the Altar de los Reyes in Queretaro, where it would likely have been paired with another image of a “good king,” St. Louis of France. The garments are decorated with a technique called estofado, which requires painting over gold leaf, and then incising the surface to reveal the gold beneath. The back of the sculpture was fully finished, which is unusual for a figure from a retable (retablo) where its back would never have been visible to congregants.

Retablos, and their sculptures, were often funded by donations from local communities: alms collected by priests or gifts from wealthy local citizens. The carving and painting of San Fernando would have been completed by several craftsmen.

The sculpture was carved out of large pieces of wood. To create the clothing, cloth dipped in gesso or plaster was laid on top, and then gilded and painted. It measures 6’4”, or 193 cm.

Queretaro, where this statue once formed part of an elaborate church retable (retablo), was once one of the wealthiest cities in New Spain. That its cathedral once held a great retablo with elaborate images such as this one is thus not surprising. Across New Spain great altars fell from favor in the 19th century, and the Queretaro altar was dismantled in the late 1800s. San Fernando was purchased in that city by a private collector, Helen Bonfils of Denver, in the 1920s. Today, this work stands in the Denver Art Museum, and has been recently conserved.

Altares de los Reyes, which featured royal saints, emphasized harmonious relationships between the political world and the spiritual world, a condition not always found in the public sphere, where viceroys and bishops frequently quarreled. In the 18th century, when this figure was made and first installed, Altares de los Reyes displayed pairs of kings. San Fernando was often matched with St. Louis of France, as was the case in the Altar de los Reyes in Mexico City’s cathedral and in Queretaro. The Altar de los Reyes of Queretaro, however, did not merely replicate the ideas or styles of art-making of New Spain’s capital city. Rather, San Fernando forms part of a local tradition of craftsmanship and religious devotion that had parallels, but no exact models elsewhere in Spanish America.

Reproduced courtesy of the Denver Art Museum. Gift from Sam Houston in Honor of Ms. Helen Bonfils

Dana Leibsohn and Barbara E. Mundy.
Vistas: Visual Culture in Spanish America, 1520-1820. http://www.fordham.edu/vistas, 2015.

Alfaro, Alfonso and María del Consuelo Maquívar. 1995. Corpus aureum: escultura religiosa. Mexico City: Museo Franz Mayer/Artes de Mexico.

Maquívar, María del Consuelo. 1995. El imaginero novohispano y su obra: las esculturas de Tepotzotlán. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.

Pierce, Donna, ed.. 2010. The Arts of South America: 1492-1850. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.