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MNAC - Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya

Anonymous Castilian, Pleurants, c. 1295

Pleurants, Anonymous Castilian, 13th century (Detail). Tempera on parchment mounted on wood, 53 x 87.8 x4.5 cm. MNAC - Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. Barcelona.

Pleurants, Anonymous Castilian, 13th century (Detail). Tempera on parchment mounted on wood, 53 x 87.8 x4.5 cm. MNAC - Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. Barcelona.

These panels decorated the funeral monument of Sancho Sáiz de Carrillo, whose recumbent effigy in the form of a wood carving is preserved at the Cincinnati Art Museum in Ohio. They were originally in the hermitage of San Andrés de Mahamud, in Burgos.

Mourners or weepers, dressed in mourning robes, were a typical decorative element in tombs from the Gothic period. Their presence recalled the funeral cortège that accompanied the deceased to their place of burial. The images of mourners expresses the pain of loss, the planctus.

The brisk, energetic paintings of Mahamud stand out against a flat background. The care and attention that the artist devoted to the heads and curly hair of the figures contrasts with the volume-less treatment of the bodies. Our attention is drawn instead to the bold striped colours of the clothes worn by the mourners, giving this Gothic scene a strikingly attractive and modern air.

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