Reclining Figure of Saint Holding Cross, Supported by Two Angels (Death of the Magdalene?) 1695 - 1705

Curator: Pedro Duque Cornejo, a prominent Baroque artist, likely sketched this “Reclining Figure of Saint Holding Cross, Supported by Two Angels (Death of the Magdalene?)” sometime between 1695 and 1705. Editor: There's a tenderness even in these rough lines, almost unfinished as it is. It makes me think of mourning, and how physical grief can be. Curator: Absolutely. It’s likely a preparatory drawing. Notice the material reality, though: the rapid pencil strokes, the way the forms emerge hesitantly from the paper. It reveals the artist's thought process. Editor: What strikes me, as well, is how familiar the iconography remains after centuries. We immediately read the angels, the cross; the reclining figure is reminiscent of lamentation scenes. This piece uses religious imagery as a vessel for universal emotions around death and loss. Curator: The very act of sketching allows the artist to test those symbolic arrangements, work out their material feasibility, right? It brings forward so much history and emotion, yet so economically through pencil on paper. This process connects artist to material and patron. Editor: I keep thinking about the choice of pencil here, so suited to draftsmanship. There is also a lack of refinement. This roughness heightens the sense of immediacy and intimacy, bringing us closer to both the artist's hand and the subject's vulnerability. Curator: The paper’s likely acidity, the graphite's composition--each plays its own role. It also highlights the artist’s craft as essential and of significance, moving beyond the religious narrative. Editor: A piece so pregnant with loss made so materially simple--a pencil drawing; the barest expression to explore an intensely charged idea. What a process. Curator: Exactly. We see the cultural persistence through material reduction here.