The Saeta

The Saeta is among the best-known works by Julio Romero de Torres and captures, within a single scene, the atmosphere of Holy Week in Córdoba. The painter brings together on the canvas references to two processional images of the city, the Virgen de los Dolores and the Cristo de Gracia, nicknamed «el Esparraguero», although the two were not carried out on the same day. In the background stands the house of the Marqués de la Fuensanta del Valle, today the Rafael Orozco Higher Conservatory of Music. In the foreground, a woman with a sensual air kneels at a prie-dieu, accompanied by a blind man, a young handcuffed man, an old woman and a young girl, figures that give the scene a charged dramatic tension. Romero de Torres drew on paintings by Valdés Leal and Antonio del Castillo held in the Museo de Bellas Artes in Córdoba. The work was shown in Bilbao in 1919, at the artist's first solo exhibition, which was well received, and shortly afterwards a tiled copy was made for a square in Córdoba linked to the image of the Virgin of Sorrows. It illustrates how the artist combined popular religiosity, Andalusian genre scenes and a highly personal vision.

Painter

Julio Romero de Torres

Date

1917

Medium

tempera, oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

166 × 161 cm

Museum

Cajasur Collection

Genre

religious art

Depicts

prayer, woman

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