José Atanasio Echeverría, Zeichner
Hl. Johannes von Gott, 1790 - 1819
Echeverría's inventory of the "Escuela Española” lists this drawing as number 27 and describes it as "By the same (Echeverría), imitating one of Murillo's drawing styles." Like the following work (inv. no. 38526, cat. no. 41), this small sheet drawn with fine lines recalls the school of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. A manuscript in the Hamburger Kunsthalle archives also points out its similarities to works by Domingo Martínez.[1]
In the drawing, John of God (1495-1550), founder of the Order of the Brothers Hospitallers that bears his name in honor of his lifelong dedication to the most needy, is depicted with a crown of thorns on his head, contemplating the cross emerging from a pomegranate. That iconographic element appears in the very first images of Saint John of God and originates in the Christ Child's apparition to him in Gaucín (in Málaga). Several narratives describe this event in which the saint took in the Christ Child, who appeared to him in the form of a waif. According to the most common biography, Jesus then offered him a pomegranate from which a cross was sprouting and said: “Granada will be your cross, and for her, you will be with Jesus in Heaven.” Following that episode, the saint dedicated his life to assisting the sick and poor of that city, with which he was associated forever after.[2]
Jens Hoffmann-Samland
1 The information comes from a file with loose entries that includes data, ideas, and notes on the drawings. Most of them specify neither the sources of their information nor their authorship. They may have been begun in 1914, when Gustav Pauli replaced Alfred Lichtwark as director of the Hamburger Kunsthalle, but that has yet to be clearly established.
2 Larios Larios 1995, 89–94, quotes friar Dionisio Celi's text, Miraculosa vida y santas obras del Beato Patriarca Juan de Dios lusitano, Burgos, 1618, fol. 21 v.