Flemish school; 17th century.

Flemish school; XVII century.
"Calvary".
Oil on copper.
It has adapted frame of the seventeenth century.
Measurements: 33 x 23 cm; 44 x 35 cm (frame).
The artist of the present composition offers us a scene of Calvary that summarizes the Passion of Christ. We see Jesus still alive on the cross, about to be wounded with the lance in his side. At the foot of the cross, we see Mary Magdalene kneeling and clinging to the cross. Behind her, the figure of St. John the Evangelist. Next to the cross, and to the left appears the Virgin holding one of her hands to her chest, in an attitude of pain and suffering, while she directs her face to her son. The scene is completed with a multitude of characters, among which stand out the good and bad thief in profile to the spectator and flanked by the figure of Christ. In the foreground a man on horseback observes the scene, providing spatiality to the image that is closed in the background by the presence of the city. At a formal level, it is worth noting how it is a work in which the color, attenuated and with a harmonious palette, is subordinated to the drawing, the true protagonist of the composition.
Due to the technical characteristics, such as the modeling of the forms, the tonalities used, the type of composition, and even the aesthetic details used in the treatment of the canvases that make up the scene, this work can be inscribed within the baroque school. It shows the Crucifixion with the Virgin and St. John at the feet, an iconographic form evolved from the original Byzantine Déesis, which represented Christ in Majesty accompanied by Mary and St. John the Baptist. In Western art, the representation of Christ on the cross will be preferred, as a narrative scene, and the figure of St. John the Baptist will be replaced by that of John the Evangelist. Another significant change, which seeks greater naturalism, is that while in the Byzantine model both the Virgin and St. John have their faces raised or oriented towards Christ, with their hands in a position of supplication on behalf of humanity, here they are shown mourning in the classical manner, with a restrained expressiveness.