3-098-954 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Visit of Cardinal Tavera to the famous Alonso Berruguete, c1884. Depiction of a supposed meeting between Juan Pardo de Tavera (1472-1545), cardinal, archbishop, and Inquisitor General of Spain, and the sculptor Alonso Berruguete (c1490-1561). The scene presumably takes place in the sculptor's house or workshop, judging by the plaster casts hanging on the back wall. In the centre of the room, the sculptor shows his guests the carving of St Sebastian, made in 1527 for the altarpiece of San Benito in Valladolid, and currently housed in the National Sculpture Museum. On the table is a drawing with the plans for an altarpiece, which is being attentively contemplated by a boy on the right. Alonso Berruguete had worked on this piece in Valladolid during the years that Cardinal Tavera, who was his patron, held the Toledo archbishopric and commissioned him to undertake several works for the Primate Cathedral. Indeed, the sculptor's last major work was the Tomb of Cardinal Tavera for the church of the hospital of the same name in Toledo.