Saintly PortraitsFrancisco de Zurbarán
Saint Casilda, about 1635
Oil on canvas, 171 x 107 cm
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, 448 (1979.26)

The Council of Trent, first convened in 1545 to develop the Church’s response to the Protestant Reform, recommended the veneration of religious images in the interest of education, deepening faith, and worship. While the figures of Christ and the Virgin were privileged, saints were also highly popular for their role as intercessors towards God and models of a virtuous life. 
 

In this spirit, Zurbarán painted images of saints, to great success. Depicted as contemporary young girls, luxuriously garbed and richly adorned, they are most often shown in three-quarter profile. They present the attributes of their martyrdom in gracefully animated poses, their gaze fixed on the viewer. Generally exhibited in series, they are shown in motion, as in the processions of young virgins organised for great religious celebrations. 

Among this abundant production, we may distinguish isolated figures such as Saint Margaret of Antioch; those designed as companion pieces, like Saint Catherine of Alexandria and the martyred female saint preserved in Bilbao – possibly Saint Elizabeth of Portugal – which might be portraits of two sisters; and also various altarpiece elements. The Louvre’s Saint Apollonia and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Chartres’s Saint Lucy, for instance, came from the high altar of the Church of San José of the Monastery of Discalced Mercedarians in Seville.

Saint Casilda, daughter of a Muslim king of Spain, converted to Christianity. While bringing bread to Christian prisoners, she was surprised by her father; the food she had hidden in her garments was transformed into roses. She shared this iconography with two queens, Saint Elisabeth of Hungary and Saint Elisabeth of Portugal, explaining the sometimes fluctuating identification of these three royal figures.

Zurbarán pays particular attention to the depiction of textiles, with which he was familiar through his father’s trade as a cloth merchant. He makes the lushness of the gown’s brocade velvet palpable, contrasting it with the crispness of the cloak’s silk taffeta. The impression of opulence conveyed by garb and jewels evokes the glory of the saint in paradise. A powerful light models her face, whose features seem individualised, although this is not a portrait. Some of these images might indeed be ‘retratos a lo divino’, genuine portraits of young women depicted with religious attributes.