Sebastian Munoz

SEBASTIÁN MUÑOZ (Casarrubios del Monte, Toledo, 1654/1657-Madrid, 1690).
"Saint Elizabeth of Hungary curing the ringworm", 1689.
Oil on canvas.
Preserves original canvas with additions in the margins.
It presents restorations in the pictorial surface and damages caused by xylophages in the frame.
Signed and dated on the back.
Measurements: 183 x 114 cm; 216 x 146 cm (frame).
In this work we see St. Elizabeth of Hungary healing a child, a theme that was very much to the taste of the time. Aesthetically the work also shows a taste for the costumbrista painting that became popular during the Baroque period. Saint Elizabeth was the daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary. She married Louis IV of Thuringia and upon the death of her husband in 1227 decided to lead an ascetic life, devoting herself to charitable works. For this purpose she built a hospital for the poor and lepers in Marburg, attending personally to the sick. In 1228 she took the habit of a Franciscan tertiary, becoming its patroness. In 1235 she was canonized by Gregory IX. Murillo used to present the saint surrounded by lepers whom she cured with her own hands.
Sebastián Muñoz began his training as an apprentice in the workshop of Hipólito de Torres. In January 1680, he moved to Madrid to work with Claudio Coello on the decorations to celebrate the arrival of Maria Luisa de Orleans, the new wife of King Charles II. He then moved to Italy, where he joined expatriate Spanish painters in petitioning the king to establish an academy of Spanish painting in Rome. While there, he studied with Carlo Maratta. On his return to Spain, he stopped in Zaragoza, where he again worked as Coello's assistant, painting frescoes in the Iglesia de la Mantería. Returning to Madrid in 1686, he worked at the Royal Alcazar, where he painted the ceiling of the Queen's bedroom with a scene from Orlando Furioso. In another part of the palace, he created a scene from the mythological story of Psyche and Cupid, which earned him an appointment as court painter. In 1689 he painted the queen's funeral for the Convent of Carmen Calzado. It is said that the monks did not recognize the Queen as the portrait, so Muñoz had to place her portrait in a medallion, supported by angels. At the Buen Retiro Palace, he worked on the decoration of the private rooms of the new Queen, Maria Anna de Neuburg, at the same time, he began to restore the frescoes of the dome of the Basilica of Our Lady of Atocha.