Puebla. San Francisco: Talavera painting

In a previous posts we noted paintings by members of a prominent family of poblano artists, los Talavera, some of whom also worked in Oaxaca.  The painter Cristóbal de Talavera, who seems to have been the patriarch of this dynasty, specialized in large scale narrative paintings.
   Probably his best known work is an ambitious and highly detailed Spiritual Lineage of St Francis, still to be found in the  city of Puebla, hung in the chapel of S. Sebastián de Aparicio.

Dated 1731, the year of the artist's death, this vast canvas employs a traditional Tree of Jesse format portraying Saint Francis at the bottom from whom the tree trunk springs. Row after row of Franciscan saints and martyrs, men and women, densely crowd the spreading branches, each with an identifying scroll.

The Virgin Mary, enfolded in a windblown blue robe, appears in the middle with Christ on the Cross above.

Text © 2020 Richard D Perry

images courtesy of ELTB

see our other posts on Mexican Tree of Jesse imagery: Zinacantepec; Cuernavaca;