Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz - Baptismal Procession of Prince Juan through the Streets of Seville [1910]

Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz - Baptismal Procession of Prince Juan through the Streets of Seville [1910], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This painting depicts the baptism of Prince Juan. It is based on the description of that event from Historia de los Reyes Católicos (History of the Catholic Kings) by Andrés Bernáldez, published in 1856. The documentary rigour of this text is transferred to the canvas, so we can speak here of the archeological veracity with which Pradilla reconstructed that historical event.

The refined drawing is combined with the use of rich and brilliant colours. The scene is nuanced by a strong light that leaves broad areas of the canvas in shadows, creating a certain degree of visual sensationalism.

This is one of the artist's last history paintings and was made late in his career, when his taste for anecdote and ornamentation took precedence over the gravity of the even being represented. The monumental figures of his youth give way, in this work, to a greater wealth of decoration, with the presence of numerous secondary figures.

[Museo Nacional del Prado - Oil on canvas, 193 x 403 cm]

Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz - Queen Juana Confined at Tordesillas with Her Daughter [1906]

Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz - Queen Juana Confined at Tordesillas with Her Daughter [1906], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In keeping with his interest in Queen Juana, Pradilla painted this painting of the queen's confinement in Tordesillas Castle, where she spent the rest of her life alongside the cadaver of her husband. Juana sits besides a window in a palace room with a Gothic fireplace. Lost in thought, she gazes at the viewer without noticing her daughter's play. A lady in waiting and a servant on the right contemplate the scene with some sadness. An open door in the background offers a view of the coffin with the body of Felipe “el Hermoso.”

Pradilla abandoned the grandiloquence of enormous history paintings from earlier decades in order to make a small cabinet painting. The studied setting, archeological and historical knowledge used here with a certain eclecticism of clothing and furnishings, are combined with a finished and very polished technique. Those aspects prevent this work from being considered a sketch for a larger painting on the same subject, making this a magnificent example of Pradilla's new pictorial tendencies with regard to history paintings: small format works.

[Museo Nacional del Prado - Oil on canvas, 85 x 146 cm]