Sevillian school, following models of Michelangelo (Caprese Michelangelo, 1475 -Rome, 1564).

Sevillian school circa 1600; Following models of MIGUEL ANGEL BUONARROTI ( Caprese Michelangelo,1475 -Rome, 1564).
"Christ".
Polychrome lead.
Presents faults.
Measurements: 26 x 21 x 3cm; 36 x 14 cm (base).
This Christ in polychrome lead stands out for its deep sense of humanity and suffering. The detailed musculature and facial expression convey both pain and dignity, reflecting Michelangelo's characteristic style, which fuses physical strength with spirituality. This Christ not only represents a central figure of Christianity, but also embodies the artist's quest to represent divinity through the human form, establishing a dialogue between the sacred and the earthly that continues to resonate in contemporary art.
Francisco Pacheco was the first to write about these copies in his book "Arte de la pintura", published posthumously in 1649. According to Pacheco, it was an Italian goldsmith based in Seville, named Juan Bautista Franconio, who introduced in Spain a 30 cm bronze, whose workmanship faithfully followed Michelangelo's model. Pacheco polychromed the first of the molds in 1600 and gave it as a gift to Pablo de Céspedes, prebendary of the Cathedral of Córdoba. What interested Pacheco most was that the Michelangelo-Franconius corpus perpetuated a vision of Saint Bridget of Sweden, in which Jesus was nailed to the cross with four nails, with the left ankle rolled over the right, and that this devotional formation in turn influenced the great Sevillian Sculptor Juan Martínez Montañés. The pure and resigned character of Christ recalls Michelangelo's early years, beginning with the wooden corpus in Santo Spirito, Florence, and the dead Christ in his painted Entombment (National Gallery of Art, London). In his old age, Michelangelo was more obsessed than ever with the challenge of conveying the divine love expressed by the crucified. The musculature was elaborated in a famous drawing in the Teylers Museum, Haarlem, which includes a cross profile without a left arm. Among the most elaborate drawings of Michelangelo's dead Christ, one from the Royal Collection of Windsor is the closest to our model. This model circulated mainly in Spain as already mentioned, both in bronze and silver, and it is debatable whether ours was made in Rome or in Spain.
At the end of his days, Vasari tells us, Michelangelo was working on the image of Christ crucified in small format. Proof of these works are the unfinished Christ still preserved in the Casa Buonarrotti and the sketch on painted paper on the back of a sonnet in the Vatican Apostolic Library. The model created in those years is known in various ways, being mostly serial works by bronze and silversmiths. The first ones are found around 1540-60 by the workshops of Guglielmo della Porta and Sebastiano Torrigiani. Thanks to these bronze Christs, an innovative model of Christ became known.