Ignatius of Loyola portrait (Alonso Sánchez Coello)

This portrait of Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, was painted in Madrid in 1585 by Alonso Sánchez Coello, a portraitist at the Spanish court. It was commissioned by Pedro de Ribadeneira, who found the earlier likeness by Jacopino del Conte unconvincing and wanted a face closer to the saint's real features. The painter drew on two sources. One was a clay model, sculpted by Brother Domingo Beltrán under Ribadeneira's supervision to correct the distortions of the death mask. The other was Ribadeneira's own memory, since he had known Loyola personally and gave precise details of his complexion and skin tone. Contemporaries judged the work superior to earlier versions, and its reputation as a devotional image led to sixteen copies being ordered for Jesuit provinces, though the order's chroniclers felt none matched the original. The canvas hung in the Casa Profesa in Madrid and was destroyed by fire in May 1931, during the church burnings at the start of the Second Republic. Its image survived through engravings and later copies, which established it as one of the canonical depictions of the saint.

Painter

Alonso Sánchez Coello

Date

1585

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Genre

portrait

Depicts

Ignatius of Loyola

Share:FacebookWhatsApp