In the 17th century, Catalonia was far from the centers of power, the main promoters of Baroque art. In our house, the customers used to be religious orders and, above all, parishes or confraternities. Following the Battle of Lepant (1571), devotion to Our Lady of the Rosary became popular in Catalonia and commissions to expand and beautify chapels under this invocation multiplied. This growing demand made Manresa an important center of art production.
Families of sculptors, such as the Grau, the Generes, the Sunyer and the Padró families, settled in Manresa and, from here, worked on commissions throughout Catalonia between the 17th and 18th centuries. Some of their works place them among the most renowned Catalan artists of their time.
This month we present the Rosary altarpiece in the church of Sant Pere Màrtir, one of the most important sets in the collection of the Manresa Museum, made by one of the most renowned sculptors of the 17th century, Joan Grau (1608 – 1685). Grau was born in Constantí (Alt Camp) and settled in Manresa around 1620. He worked on a large number of altarpieces in Bages and the surrounding counties such as Solsonès or Segarra. His style, contained and with a still Plateresque aftertaste, is the most representative of this first period of Manresa Baroque. In the final stage, his career took on more ambitious works made with stone and alabaster, such as the altarpiece in the Cova de Sant Ignasi, in Manresa or the work at the Poblet monastery, where he made the crypt and several tombs. From this set in the Baroque Museum you can see the fine alabaster carving of an Atlant from the reliquary altars of Poblet. In this second period, Joan Grau worked with his son Francesc, who became one of the most vigorous and creative Catalan sculptors of the last third of the 17th century.
In 1642 the confraternity of the Roser of the church of Sant Pere Màrtir in Manresa commissions the creation of an altarpiece to embellish the new chapel of the Roser, to the best Manresa sculptor of the moment, Joan Grau. They wanted a great work that would show sumptuously the power of the confraternity and the devout enthusiasm of the faithful. We do not know the year the chapel was built, but the new altarpiece was installed in 1644. It must be thought that the Confraternity of the Virgin of the Rosary received a lot of alms, following the revival of the cult towards this virgin.
The furniture, which adapted to the curve of the closing wall of the chapel, was made up of five panels – the central one, highlighted by the framing with double columns and a greater width – and, from bottom to top, pedestal, predella and three floors through which the episodes were distributed in high relief. The work narrated the fifteen mysteries of the Virgin of the Rosary. The narrative was structured in successive and ascending order and presented an arrangement of the scenes of the Roser cycle that was particularly fortunate, as it progressively harmonized the fifteen mysteries. On the panels we find the mysteries of Joy and Glory and on the predella the mysteries of Pain culminating with Calvary at the top. On the first floor of the central body there was a large niche that broke with the reticular design to house the image of the Virgin of the Rose, given by the Dominicans from Barcelona in 1631.
The Rosary altarpiece in the church of Sant Pere Màrtir is the most paradigmatic work of Joan Grau. A work of maturity where he demonstrates a great mastery of high relief and figures that also served as a model for many other altarpieces that the sculptors from Manresa made in the middle of the 17th century.
Another of the most interesting aspects of the altarpiece is its final finish thanks to the braised and gilding work carried out by the gilders Gabriel Adrià and Magí Torrabruna. It is worth stopping to contemplate the details that embellish the Nativity scene, with a polychrome and golden work that stands out from the rest of the scenes. The clothes of the characters are decorated with mythological and angelic figures that share the spotlight with animals and vegetable and floral motifs that embellish the fabrics and the backgrounds of the scene.
The altarpiece of the Rosary remained in its original location until 1936. In the context of the revolt that came after the military uprising against the republic, churches and other elements of religious art were the object of attacks and destruction. Thus the church of Sant Pere Màrtir (located in the current Plaça Sant Domènec) was completely demolished, along with other temples in the city. Some elements of its interior furniture, such as the Rosary altarpiece, were saved by being dismantled and transferred to a temporary deposit of artistic goods located in the Cova de Sant Ignasi. There, during the years of the Civil War, objects of art from the city but also from other places in the region were gathered there. Since 1940, the Rosary altarpiece has been part of the Manresa Museum collection and over the years, the set has always had a prominent place in the exhibition halls.
Now, with the creation of the new Museu del Barroc and the new museum distribution, twenty-five pieces of this altarpiece, completely restored, are being exhibited for the first time. A major work that, despite the vicissitudes it has undergone, has been able to be preserved almost in its entirety, and allows us to get an idea of the magnitude of these great altarpieces, which are rare in the country due to different waves of destruction. Due to the height dimensions, it was not possible to exhibit it assembled, but the distribution of the pieces favors being able to contemplate the compartments individually and capture the ornamental wealth and suggestion of the rigorous and severe compositions, maintaining the overall vision of the work .
