Following the documentary traces of a singular and musunderstood sculpture

The Cristo de la Humildad y Paciencia (Jauja, Lucena)

Abstract

The image of the Cristo de la Humildad y Paciencia, found in the village of Jauja (Lucena, Córdoba), is a light sculpture with a material history marked by oblivion. It is a piece whose main interest lies in the sculptural technique in which it is made and which makes it unique in itself as it is not anchored to the usual procedural canons of Spanish Baroque imagery. This peculiarity in itself makes it a notable example which, moreover, could be related to the Novo-Hispanic workshops erected in Mesoamerica in which processes were implemented for the production of sacred works using maize cane as the main material. It is not in vain that numerous pieces of indigenous origin were sent to the Iberian Peninsula from the dawn of the 16th century onwards, also resulting in a clear example of the triumph of the evangelisation carried out by the mendicant orders; in particular, the conversion of the Franciscan order into the basic promoter of many of them. Since its documentation in the 18th century, the work was worshipped in Cabra (Córdoba), where it enjoyed the veneration of the faithful; but time, material deterioration and aesthetic changes -subject to the prevailing fashions in local religiosity- meant that it ended up occupying a secondary place, leaving the sacred precinct to be cornered in an old farm mill. In the 1960s it was rescued and restored for worship in the church of the aforementioned hamlet of Lucena. A series of investigations have allowed us to gain first-hand knowledge of the particularities of the work, which can be related aesthetically to other similar works in a nearby geographical area, all dating from the 18th century.