Saint Anthony preach fish Carreno de Miranda

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Saint Anthony Preaching to the Fish, by Spanish masterJuan Carreño de Miranda (1646). Oil on canvas.

This is the earliest surviving work signed and dated by Carreño, and its style is still closely linked to masters from the first half of the century. Palomino, who knew and had contact with Carreño mentions this painting as being, by his hand, but more at the beginning, probably as a reference to what his contemporaries clearly recognized: that the composition was rather archaic. Especially the child angels, with their rather forced foreshortening and excessively turgid forms, are close to those painted by Pereda around 1640, and to those visible in Rizi’s Saint Andrew from the same year, which also clearly recalls works by the previous generation. This work’s most typically baroque element, with its light, advanced technique, nervous brushstrokes and rich colors, is the curious seascape, with the vibrant fish’s heads that contribute to its vivid liveliness.

The group of figures in the upper left corner includes two angels playing musical instruments: a diatonic harp similar to Spanish models from the middle ages, and a renaissance cornet, which plays a melodic role in Baroque instrumental ensembles. Curved cornets were most frequent in Renaissance minstrel groups and baroque instrumental groups, while the sweeter-sounding straight cornets were less common. At the upper right corner, an angel plays a positive organ, while at the center, beneath the figure of the Christ Child, another angel plays a bass viol. The organ rests on a table and the angel who plays its keyboard and sings leans his head to the left. Although the instrument’s bellows are not visible, the angel behind it is holding his hand up, which may indicate that he is moving the bellows. He may also, however, be marking time, as both the organist and another angel to his right are singing. The positive organ, then called realejo in Castillian Spanish, was small and not very loud. It was frequently used in religious ceremonies and often appears in Christian iconography on the Iberian Peninsula.

In the case of the viol: the contours of its body, its f-holes and marked lateral entries are typical of that instrument, as is the short, dark fingerboard, characteristic of bowed instruments from that period, and the curved and open, sickle-shaped peg box, which does not end in a scroll. The instrumentalist angels and the singing angels holding sheet music accompany the saint as he preaches to the fish that miraculously draw near to hear his words.

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