Santa Monica looks new eyelashes on her return to the monastery of the Incarnation

The two sculptures, in the altarpiece of the Church of the Monastery of the Incarnation.Laura Martínez

Restoration Heritage

The sculpture, together with that of San Agustín, both now attributed to the mysterious Juan González, who have been in the Agustinas nun convent, have been restored by national heritage techniques.

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Santa Monica again has eyebrows and eyelashes on her mourning face.And on his right, on the other side of the altarpiece of the Church of the Royal Monastery of the Incarnation, he also looks again in all his splendor his son, San Agustín, represented as bishop, with miter, staff and hands of gloves, as one of theFounding Fathers of the Latin Church.The two excellent baroque wooden sculptures from the beginning of the 17th century have returned to their orginal habitat, the landscape of the Altar of the Agustinas nun convent, after being restored by the national heritage experts.

There they were placed after the foundation of the monastery, a construction erected between 1611 and 1616 by desire of King Felipe III and, above all, of his wife Margarita de Austria-Stiria, who wanted to emulate a convent of the characteristics of the real barefoot to theAlcazar side.Santa Monica and San Agustín have since maintained as protagonists of the altarpiece, surviving the complete remodeling of the temple signed by Ventura Rodríguez between 1755 and 1775, of neoclassical taste of Roman inspiration, and to the different war-historical avatars of Madrid.

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"They are magnificent pieces," summarizes Ana Loureiro, director of the restoration works carried out by Adriana Herans and Sehila Solano Pascual for five "intensis" months.She explains to this newspaper the peculiarities of both sculptures while photographing them for the last time in the laboratory - a diaphanous room of the Royal Palace."Above all, Santa Monica stands out for the naturalness of cloths, the profusion of folds, polychromy and a face with great force."

The saints are being dismantled - the arm of Santa Monica with La Cruz and that of San Agustín with a book of their works on which a church supports - by five operators of the company situated and introduced in large wooden boxes.They are protected with wooden boards reinforced by a special foam and paper that avoid the loss of paint.From there to the truck and a brief walk to the monastery, located behind the opposite corner of the Plaza de Oriente.Several hours later, and with the help of two small scaffolding, the sculptures are placed again on their stone bases of the altarpiece, escorting a large canvas of Vicente Carducho on the announcement.

Loureiro says that Santa Monica, 1.83 meters high, had two polychromies on top of the original, that is, it had been repainted twice, perhaps because it was dirty and at the time that was the formula used to give luster toThe sculptures, or perhaps for a change in the artistic tastes of the moment.The recovery of the Primagenio color, which draws a profuse decoration and a beautiful cenefa at the bottom of the tunic, has been achieved at a pulse and scalpel tip, as if the restorers were surgeon, or archaeologists."Before it was like a black mass," says the specialist.The intervention has allowed rescuing the slightest details of the saint, such as eyelashes and eyebrows, in addition to the elegant folds of her dress.

The sculptures, during its transfer of the Royal Palace to the Incarnation.

This sculpture presented a problem of color sitting at the rear, which was very deteriorated by so much polychromy.The San Agustín, two meters high and almost 130 kilos, has had a similar journey, although its repainting was much richer.The restaurateurs have decided to keep it that way and not try to return their original tones.Cleaning allows you to better appreciate its bishop clothing: the black tunic, the golden cenefa and the layer with floral motifs of numerous colors.

The move is supervised by Leticia Sánchez and María Jesús Herrero, conservative of National Heritage Sculpture."They are two excellent pieces of the Baroque of the early seventeenth century," says the second.Santa Monica and San Agustín were part of the exhibition The other court.Women of the House of Austria in the real monasteries of the barefoot and the incarnation, closed at the beginning of the year, and were exhibited as the work of Gregorio Fernández, one of the greatest exponents of the Castilian school of baroque sculpture, right next to theirYacente Christ.

Operators place 'San Agustín' in their altarpiece base.

However, after cleaning and restoration work, authorship has changed: they are now attributed to Juan González, a sculptor of which there is a lot of documentation but of which he has survived very little material evidence."González worked at the same time and in the same workshops as Ordonez," says María Jesús Herrero.Hence the debate generated and that has not yet been closed with absolute certainty.The back of Santa Monica, for example, where many tunic folds come together, reminds other creations of the Lucense artist.

Alien to these academic details, the two pieces occupy their privileged place in the church of the Monastery of the Incarnation.There they have four centuries, since the temple acted as a real parish to the present, when the visitors who immerse themselves in the history and the treasures of the convent are photographed or when they preside over the Sundays of Sundays in the morning.

Detail of the face of Santa Monica.laura Martínez

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