Francisco Zurbarán's workshop; 17th century.

Workshop of FRANCISCO ZURBARÁN (Fuente de Cantos, Badajoz, 1598 - Madrid, 1664).
"Santa Faz".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
Measurements: 102 x 80 x 7 cm.
In this devotional image painted in oil on canvas the face of Christ is presented as if it had been miraculously printed on the cloth of the Veronica. Jesus appears crowned with thorns and with slight streaks of blood that allude to the physical suffering and exhaustion of the road to Calvary. His gaze, direct and frontal, interpellates the spectator with a silent intensity that combines gravity and serenity, offering an image of Christ not only suffering, but also savior and redeemer, conscious of his sacrifice.
The iconography of the Holy Face is rooted in the Passion episode in which a woman, moved by compassion, wipes Christ's face with her veil. In this pious gesture, the face of the Messiah is imprinted on the linen cloth, miraculously preserved over time and made into an object of veneration. That woman would later be known as Veronica, a name derived from the Latin verum -true- and the Greek eikon -image-, underlining the idea of an authentic image and not made by human hands. The Holy Face is among the most famous relics of Christianity and is documented for the first time in 1137.
This theme, already infrequent in the 17th century, was taken up again by Francisco de Zurbarán, who knew how to endow it with an exceptional spiritual force. Trained in Seville between 1614 and 1617 as a disciple of Pedro Díaz de Villanueva, Zurbarán had the opportunity to meet key figures of the Sevillian artistic scene such as Pacheco and Herrera, as well as to interact with young artists of his generation, among them Velázquez and Cano. After a period of diverse training, he returned to Extremadura and settled in Llerena, where he worked intensively for convents and churches until 1628.
In 1629, at the request of the Municipal Council, he moved permanently to Seville, beginning the most prestigious stage of his career. During that decade he received numerous commissions from the main religious orders of Andalusia and Extremadura and, in 1634, he was called to the court -probably through Velázquez- to collaborate in the decoration of the Buen Retiro. Back in Seville he continued to work both for the court and for monastic institutions, until 1658, when he moved to Madrid, where he painted mainly small canvases of private devotion, of refined execution and deep spiritual intimacy.
Zurbarán is characterized by a sober and contained realism, far from the grandiloquence and baroque theatricality. His compositions, severe and rigorously ordered, reach an extraordinary emotional intensity, especially in his devotional works. Although he did not always solve the problems of geometric perspective with ease, his mastery of anatomical drawing and faces is impeccable. The tenebrism, present especially in his first Sevillian period, reinforces the recollection and spiritual concentration of images such as this Santa Faz, conceived to arouse a silent and profoundly pious contemplation.