Juan de Juni Circle

Circle of JUAN DE JUNI (Joigny, France, 1506 - Valladolid, 1577).
"Virgin and Child.
Carved and polychrome wood.
It presents damages caused by xylophagous.
Measurements: 110 x 50 x 26 cm.
The figure represents the image of a young Mary with golden hair holding her son. The clothes give it volume not without a certain movement that is generated through the folds of the fabrics. The back of the sculpture is barely worked, indicating that it is a sculpture conceived to be seen only from the front and probably as part of a larger sculptural group, as was common at the time. Aesthetically the work shows a great delicacy in the carving of the facial features, in addition to the movement provided by the folds, the posture of the Child and the great volume of the flesh of the characters, in particular that of the Child Jesus, show us a sculptor familiar with the classical currents that would define the aesthetics of the Renaissance.
According to its stylistic characteristics, the carving can be inscribed in the artistic circle of Juan de Juni. Juan de Juni was trained in France and Italy, from where he was requested by the Portuguese bishop Pedro Álvarez de Acosta to build the episcopal palace of Oporto. Later, around 1533, he traveled to Spain where he worked in León and participated in the decoration of the façade of the San Marcos building. Regarding his style in his imagery, he maintained the expressive pathos of Burgundian art and especially in the grandiloquence of the drapery of his sculptures, inherited from the Gothic sculptor Claus Sluter, together with the influence of Michelangelo. His figures are correctly modeled, opulent, fleshy, of great emotional intensity and a marked dynamism in their clothing. These characteristics have led him to be called the father of Spanish Baroque sculpture. Together with Alonso Berruguete, he is considered the founder of the Valladolid school of sculpture, which extended throughout the 16th century with these and other sculptors, the 17th century, with Gregorio Fernández at the head, and the 18th century with Luis Salvador Carmona.