JUAN CORREA

(Ciudad de México, c. 1645 - 1716)

JUAN CORREA (Mexico City, c. 1645 - 1716) "The Virgin of Carmen sheltering different saints under her mantle"

Oil on canvas. Reference bibliography: Vargaslugo, E., "Juan Correa. Su vida y su obra", Mexico, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Institute of Aesthetic Research, 2017. This painting represents the Virgin of Carmen sheltering different saints under her mantle. In the group on the left, with Saint Dominic of Guzmán at the head, we find Saint Anthony of Padua carrying the lily, Saint Barbara with the tower in which she was imprisoned and Saint Augustine, with the mitre, carrying a feather in his hand. In the group on the right, led by Saint Francis of Assisi, appear the Dominican Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Ursula carrying an arrow and Saint Nicholas of Tolentino with his starry tunic. The mantle of the Virgin of Carmen is held by Saint Joseph and Saint Teresa, spiritual pillars of Carmel. Of unknown authorship, its stylistic and formal characteristics allow it to be related to the works of the New Spanish painter Juan Correa, born in Mexico City around 1645 and died in 1716; one of the most prolific painters of this period and who, consequently, had a huge workshop from which came a multitude of commissions of varying quality. His father, of African and Spanish mixture, was a surgeon from Cadiz and his mother was a “free dark-skinned woman” from New Spain. Mulatto, with respect to this union, managed to achieve great social prestige with a series of works that recalled those of Villalpando due to the looseness of the brushstrokes and their lively colours. The works from his first period, before 1680, are much more detailed and drawn, and in them we can see an unmistakable characteristic of his works: the “broken colour” painting or the fact of painting the flesh tones of the figures with “dark skin”; traits that are perfectly appreciated in this work. Formally, it must be put in relation with a small painting signed by Correa (15 x 11 cm) recently appeared in the Madrid trade and which represents the Virgin of Carmen interceding for the souls in Purgatory with the help of Saint Joseph and Saint Teresa (Alcalá, March 12, 2020, lot 839). The physiognomic features of Mary and the saint of Ávila are identical in both cases, as is the morphology of the angelic heads. The same use of gold can be seen in the halos, the crowns and in the details of the vestments, and an identical colour palette of slightly more “tanned” tones is used in this canvas. The figures of the Virgin share a peculiar rounded halo with a blue background on which the twelve stars of the vision of the Apocalypse are spread. Measurements: 178 x 140 cm.