The Banco de España Collection includes a major work in the form of this reliquary by German artist Christoph Daniel Schenck, which it acquired directly from the Marchioness of Castrofuerte in 1975. A certificate from its former owners states that it had been in the family’s possession since the time of the first Marquess, Pedro Pacheco y Chacón, who was ennobled by Philip IV in 1627. Family tradition has it that the reliquary was given to the marquess by a Spanish queen. Given the date of its production, that would probably have been Marianne of Austria.

It is a portable reliquary, intended as a devotional object. It takes the form of an altarpiece with two fold-away doors. On their outsides the doors are decorated with ivory spirals and lines. The insides are divided into three levels on each door, with each image contained symmetrically in an oval or square, or in a small niche. There are paintings on enamel, small ivory sculptures, fragments of texts that probably come from an old bible and the relics themselves, wrapped in fine paper inscribed with the name of the saint to whom they belong. The appearance is that of a sacred play, and the identifiable figures include St Mary Magdalene praying, St John the Baptist, the Virgin Mary, St Clare with the Monstrance, St Francis embracing a crucifix, St Lucy, St Jerome and a curious image that looks like a Byzantine icon showing the Virgin Mary with St John the Baptist and Jesus as children. These are set off by ivory figures of the Child Jesus in tiny niches. Inside the box are two oddly superimposed sculptures of the Passion of Christ that share the same time and space: Calvary and the Flagellation (the latter on a hexagonal stand). The structure is topped by a semi-circular tympanum with three ivory figures: two of the Child Jesus and the other of St Francis, along with paintings of the Virgin Mary, the Holy Face of Jesus, Our Lady of Sorrows and Christ himself.

Isabel Tejeda