Augusto Manuel de Quesada

AUGUSTO MANUEL DE QUESADA Y VÁZQUEZ (Seville, 1824 - 1891).
"Noli me tangere", 1857.
Oil on canvas. Relined.
Signed and dated.
Measurements: 94 x 125 cm; 113 x 144 cm (frame).

"Noli me tangere", literally "do not touch me", are the words Jesus Christ said to Mary Magdalene after the resurrection. The quotation corresponds to John 20:17. The original expression in Greek suggests an action that continues in time, so perhaps a better translation would be: "do not hold me back". Mary Magdalene is a main character in the Passion and death of Jesus Christ, who stands at the foot of the cross at his Crucifixion, and who is in fact the person who goes before Peter and John to the tomb on Easter morning, and the first to whom Jesus appears resurrected. Mary goes to the tomb and sees it open, so she believes that the body has been stolen, adding to her grief at the loss of the body which she believes has been desecrated. The Gospel tells us that she bends down to the tomb and sees two angels sitting inside asking her why she is weeping; when she turns around, she finds herself facing Jesus, but her tears do not allow her to see, until He calls her by name. Then Jesus said to her, "Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my Germans and say to them: I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God". At first sight it is a puzzling phrase, but, as we have already indicated, to understand it we must turn to the Greek, the language in which the Gospel was written, and scrutinize the original grammatical structure. Thus, the phrase should be interpreted as "Do not hold me back, for I have not yet ascended with the Father, and you must hasten to announce my resurrection to the apostles". It is as if he was telling Mary that when he was in heaven with his Father she could embrace him as long as she wanted, but that at that moment she should hurry and tell her brothers. In art, this episode known as "Noli me tangere" is one of the most widespread since the Renaissance. The subject is usually depicted in an orchard, in a forest or in the Garden of Eden.

The pictorial activity of Augusto Manuel de Quesada can be framed in Romanticism and Costumbrismo. His work is influenced by the style of Murillo and dedicated to portraits and religious themes. He studied between 1835 and 1843 at the School of the Academy of Noble Arts of St. Elizabeth of Seville, today the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of St. Elizabeth of Hungary in Seville. According to E. Valdivieso, he is considered a secondary painter of limited talent. According to this author, his paintings show "weakness of drawing and coldness in his coloring". However, during his lifetime, he received several awards. In 1842 he was awarded by the Economic Association of Friends of the Country of Seville for several copies of paintings made. His paintings "Nuestra Señora del Carmen" and "Santa Casilda" were awarded in 1858 at the Exhibition of the Economic Society of Jerez de la Frontera, with bronze medal and honorable mention, respectively. The painting "Nuestra Señora del Carmen" was also exhibited at the National Exhibition in Madrid in 1864, and his work "San Juan" was awarded a silver medal at the exhibition held in Cadiz in 1862. The Dukes of Montpensier had two of his paintings in their Palace of San Telmo: "La Virgen de los Reyes, adorada por San Fernando y San Luis" and "El Milagro de los panes y los peces".