Gregorio Martínez y Espinosa, Lamentation with Saints Augustine and Nicholas of Tolentino, 1590s

This intimate panel by Gregorio Martínez y Espinosa (1547-98) depicts a lamentation scene at the foot of the cross, with the Virgin Mary cradling her son's body. At either end, Saints Augustine and Nicholas of Tolentino kneel and caress Christ's wounds. Halos shimmer on the blackened rocks behind them, giving way on the left to a lucent dawn. Composition and draughtsmanship reflect the artist's admiration for and familiarity with Italian Mannerist painting and sculpture, while its dramatic coloring and heightened emotions reveal his Spanish heritage. Attributed for at least a century to Sebastián Martínez (1599-1667), the painting was recently reascribed to Gregorio Martínez y Espinosa (1547-1598) by Alfonso E. Pérez Sanchéz, who recognized not only Gregorio's exquisite technique but also his signature at bottom right.

The gifted painter Gregorio Martínez was born and worked in Valladolid, largest city of the Castile region and de facto capital of Spain during much of the sixteenth century. Political power was divided between Toledo, seat of the church, and Valladolid, periodic residence of the royal court. Castillian Renaissance culture also centered around the two cities, with El Greco at work in Toledo, and Cervantes, Alonso Berruguete and Juan de Juni, among others, based in Valladolid. Gregorio's lifetime coincided with the construction of the Él Escorial, the royal palace and monastery complex Philip built in the mountains near Madrid.

Philip II (1556-1598) imported dozens of Italian artists to decorate San Lorenzo de Él Escorial, the royal palace and monastery complex Philip built in the mountains near Madrid. Documents confirm that Martínez received at least two palace commissions, one in 1580 from Pavia-born sculptor Pompeo Leoni (García Chico), and one in 1589 to assist Bolognese painter Pellegrino Tibaldi (Zarco Cuevas). In 1590 he returned to Él Escorial, this time as an agent of the Hieronymite congregation attached to the palace, to assess the value of frescos and oil paintings executed by the king's painter (Zarco Cuevas). These Escorial residencies would have brought him into direct contact not only with Italian Mannerist painters but also with the magnificent works in the Spanish royal collection.

The Lamentation with Saints Augustine and Nicholas of Tolentino inventively combines a moment from the life of Christ--the lamentation of his mother following the deposition of his body from the cross--with a moment of reverence by saints Augustine of Hippo (354-430) and Nicholas of Tolentino (ca. 1246-1306). Augustine is shown at left with his attributes, a bishop's crozier and miter, and Nicholas at right in a black Augustinian habit studded with stars (in reference to a comet seen at his birth), near a plate of pigeons (which, according to legend, he restored to life when served to him roasted during an illness). Neither Mary nor the two male saints seem aware of any presence other than Christ's. Each is focused in deep reverence on the martyred body, an act of devotion presumably to be replicated by the painting's viewer(s).

The placement of the two saints at the head and foot of Christ's limp body mimics the positions of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathæa in a traditional deposition scene, while the gesture of kissing Christ's wounds recalls the pose of Mary Magdalene in many lamentations. Yet by substituting familiar biblical personages with latter-day holy men, Martínez lifts his Lamentation into the realm of abstract time, facilitating the viewer's ability to enter into the scene and identify with its actions. A similar motive lies behind the inclusion of donor portraits within scenes of the life of Christ and the Virgin, although in Martínez's variant, the donor's presence is implied rather than portrayed.

Though rooted in the Castillian plains, Martínez drew upon Tuscan Mannerist painting for inspiration. The art of Rosso Fiorentino (1495-1540) provides precedents both for the deposed body placed within the Virgin's lap (Deposition from the Cross, Sansepolchro, circa 1525) and for Christ's back-flung head placed against his forward-flung shoulder (Deposition from the Cross, Volterra, 1521). Martínez probably knew Rosso's paintings and those of other European artists through widely circulated engravings of famous works. The fact that christ's head and shoulder in Martínez's painting slope to the left and Rosso's to the right strengthens the argument that Martínez worked from a print, which would have reversed the original composition. Nor was Rosso's work the only source for the Lamentation composition. Inspiration for Christ's outstretched arm--one of the most dramatic and effective elements of this composition--can be found in a Deposition from the Cross by Giorgio Vasari (ex-Pisa, 1547). Vasari's painting, itself based on Rosso's work, incorporated both the splay of the Sansepolchro body and the conjoining of the Volterra head and shoulder, and added a kneeling Nicodemus holding Christ's arm. Vasari's Deposition, now lost, is known through an engraving by Enea Vico (1523-67), which Martínez may well have owned.

Yet no matter how extensive Gregorio Martínez's indebtedness to prints of Italian master paintings, elements of undeniable inspiration coexist within his Lamentation for which there are no Italian precedents. Vasari's replacement of Rosso's three Marys at the foot of the cross with Joseph and Nicodemus maintained a biblical setting time frame, while Martínez's substitution of Saints Augustine and Nicholas removed the scene from its temporal grounding. Secondly, Vasari and Rosso portrayed the Virgin Mary upright, gazing into christ's lifeless face but making no motion to approach it. Martínez's Virgin Mary actively embraces her son, inclining her head to his and drawing his body toward her, a gesture concordant with intense Spanish piety.

Without doubt Gregorio Martínez's Lamentation was designed for a Spanish audience seeking mystical experience stimulated by profoundly emotional art. His choice of saints (especially the rarely depicted Nicholas of Tolentino) suggests a connection with the Augustinian order, familiarly known as the Black Canons, who were active in Valladolid and its surrounding provinces. Alternatively, Martínez may have created this work for a private individual with Augustinian affinities. Extant documents indicate Gregorio Martínez to have had one such client--Fabio Nelli, a Sienese banker resident in Valladolid. In 1596 Nelli commissioned Martínez to design the altarpiece for his family's funerary chapel in the church of Valladolid's Convent of San Agustín (Martí y Monsó). Nelli's contract does not mention a Lamentation scene, nor do the dimensions of the extant predella panels conform to those of Wellesley's painting. However, it does provide an Augustinian link in the last decade of Martínez's career, and access to a patron who could have commissioned a private devotional work as well as a large public altarpiece.

Former Associate Curator, Melissa R. Katz