Saint Casilda

Description

Deep red and burnt orange meet dull gold in the gown of Saint Casilda, and both sit against a background the colour of weak tea, graduated from light to shadow with almost nothing happening in it. This Saint Casilda reproduction keeps that contrast intact: warm, saturated cloth against a field that gives the eye nowhere else to rest. The roses in her skirt add a third note, pale pink against the deep red, and the whole figure reads as a block of colour set deliberately against emptiness.

About Saint Casilda Reproduction

The subject is a Toledan princess who was the daughter of a Muslim king and later converted to Christianity, living out her life as a hermit near Briviesca. Her legend tells of bread carried hidden in her gown to Christian prisoners her father held, and of a miracle, worked when her father stopped her on the way, that turned the smuggled food into roses. Zurbaran gives her none of the usual trappings of an ancient story. She stands dressed as a woman of contemporary Seville might have dressed, in a jewel-embroidered gown and a gold and pearl headband rather than a crown, a detail that keeps her apart from Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, who is linked to a similar rose miracle.

The light falls hard from one side, carving the folds of the gown into solid, almost sculptural forms and giving the saint a weight that has little to do with piety and everything to do with paint handling. Zurbaran worked this way often in the 1630s, building figures through light and shadow rather than line, and Saint Casilda belongs to that period of his work. The roses gathered at her waist catch the same light as the gold thread of her bodice, so that fabric and flower sit in the same visual register.

ByMuseum artists recreate this painting as a hand-painted oil painting reproduction, built layer by layer on canvas rather than printed. A trained painter works the jewel tones of the gown, the gold embroidery, and the soft pink of the roses by hand, matching the sharp lighting and the graduated background that define the original. Brushwork stays visible across the surface, and the canvas carries the texture of oil paint rather than the flat finish of a printed copy, which is what an oil on canvas reproduction of this kind should offer a collector.

The hand-painted reproduction

Live with this Saint Casilda reproduction for a while and small things start to show: a highlight on a single pearl, a shift in the red where the light drops into shadow, the way one rose sits slightly apart from the rest. The painting rewards a second and third look rather than exhausting itself on the first.

• Hand-painted oil on canvas, built up in layers rather than printed
• Available in multiple sizes to suit your wall
• Gallery-ready presentation, finished and ready to hang
• Certificate of authenticity included with every order
• 90 day returns with a full refund or a free replacement, no restocking fee