Juan de la Abadía

JUAN DE LA ABADÍA (documented in Aragon in the last third of the 15th century).
"Saint John the Baptist led to prison".
Oil on wood.
Measurements: 111 x 69 cm.
In this scene St. John the Baptist is represented entering the prison, a subject little represented that sometimes has a composition similar to that of the Prison of Christ. John the Baptist is depicted with his usual tributes: he is barefoot and covers his body with the characteristic camel's skin. He enters the prison where he was imprisoned by King Herod Antipas. The soldiers exchange impressions among themselves, showing a variety of attitudes towards the event.
Spanish painter belonging to the Hispano-Flemish style in Aragon. Documented in Huesca, where he opened his workshop between 1469 and 1498, the date of his death. From 1489 onwards, his son Juan de la Abadía "el Joven" collaborated with him in the workshop and the two of them even contracted the altarpieces of Lastanosa (1490) and San Pedro de Biescas (1493). Gudiol establishes the hypothesis of the Catalan training of Juan de la Abadía "the Elder" and of his collaboration on some altarpieces in Barcelona with Pedro García de Benabarre, with whom the style of Juan de la Abadía "the Elder" shows points of contact, as well as with that of Jaume Huguet. The best known period of his activity corresponds to the last two decades of his life, from which a greater number of documented works are preserved, among them the "altarpieces of Sorripas", of El Salvador de Broto, Huesca (Museum of Zaragoza) or of "Santa Catalina" of the church of La Magdalena in Huesca (very scattered). The "Retablo de Santo Domingo" from the hermitage of Almudévar, Huesca (1490), which served as a starting point for Post in 1941 to designate this painter as Master of Almudévar, a few years before Ricardo del Arco made his identity known in 1945, also dates from those last years. From the earliest documented works in Huesca, such as the "Altarpiece of Santa Quiteria" in the church of the castle of Alquézar, we can see Juan de la Abadía's interest in representing the angular folds of the canvases, which are much harder in his later works, as is the more intense modelling. The painter shows the figures with a somewhat rough character, isolated and strongly modelled, with their realistic faces endowed with great expressiveness. His works are in the Museo del Prado.