Based on the study by Rosario Coppel, October 2019.

These two male busts, carved in polychromed wood and represented to shoulder length, depict Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. Both figures appear in Christian iconography of the Burial of Christ, alongside the Virgin Mary, Saint John, Mary Magdalene and Mary of Clopas.

Each bust was carved from a single block of pine, partially planed at the back, which accounts for its considerable weight. The backs remain uncarved, indicating that the sculptures were intended to be mounted against a vertical surface. The grain and knots of the wood are clearly visible.

The polychromy employs the sgraffito technique: flat colours, applied with an egg binder over a continuous layer of burnished gold leaf, are scratched away with a boxwood tool to reveal the gilding beneath. The flesh tones are painted in tempera and polished, accentuating the reddish cheeks and the moustaches and beards, grey in Joseph of Arimathea and brown in Nicodemus. The irises are painted dark grey in the former and in two shades of blue in the latter; their eyebrows are grey and brown respectively. Particular attention is given to the garments, which imitate rich fabrics with varied decorative motifs.

Joseph of Arimathea wears a red cloak with an ornamented hood and gilded arabesque borders. Beneath it appears a blue-grey turban, retaining traces of gilding and dotted decoration.

Nicodemus wears a light grey turban with blue stripes, dots and gilded borders, set with a stone at the centre and folded over a brown coif that imitates leather. Above the turban is a red cap decorated with gilded arabesques and a gilded tassel hanging at one side. His light-coloured tunic has a broad, similarly decorated border at the neckline, fastened by a central button.

The figures’ types and style, their carving techniques and their polychromy place these sculptures within the artistic production of Alonso Berruguete.

Alonso Berruguete (Paredes de Nava, c. 1488 – Valladolid, 1561) introduced Mannerism to Spain. After a prolonged stay in Italy, he returned to his native country, where he adapted the secular principles of Italian sculpture to an artistic culture permeated by religion. His distinctive style placed particular emphasis on proportion, drawing and the expressive distortion of the figure.

He employed an elongated canon of ten face-lengths, creating slender, animated figures that reflect his rapid working method and his greater concern for expression than for formal perfection.

Berruguete’s figures combine realism with intense expression. Their recurring physiognomic features include elongated faces, oblique, deep-set eyes, furrowed brows with arched eyebrows, prominent cheekbones, long, narrow noses and small mouths.

These characteristics are all present in the busts of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. Joseph’s closed mouth conveys profound sadness, while Nicodemus’s parted lips reveal his upper teeth and suggest a yearning expression. Their moustaches and beards are carved in thick, undulating locks comparable to those found in Berruguete’s representations of prophets, patriarchs and saints.

The frontal presentation of the busts, interrupted by a slight turn of the head, is one of the artist’s most distinctive compositional devices and is clearly evident in both sculptures.

The incorporation of busts into the architectural structure of an altarpiece was a decorative device frequently employed by Berruguete. Adopted from Italian Renaissance art, it ultimately derived from classical models, including Roman mosaics, sarcophagi, medallions and relief portraits of emperors and other figures from antiquity.

Berruguete used this device in the altarpiece of San Benito el Real in Valladolid, executed between 1526 and 1532 and now preserved, in separate sections, in the Museo Nacional de Escultura. This monumental ensemble combined paintings, reliefs and freestanding sculptures depicting scenes from the lives of Christ and Saint Benedict, to whom the altarpiece was dedicated. The figure of Christ from the Calvary group is three metres high, while the Virgin and Saint John are almost two metres high.

Numerous other saints, prophets and patriarchs appear in the altarpiece. Particularly relevant here are the busts of prophets emerging from roundels in the lateral sections, their lifelike figures looking down upon the scenes below.