Day 401 - Zurbaran "Agnus Dei"


 February 14, 2025

I knew it was cold and blustery today,  and I really didn't want to go outside.  I had to "bribe" myself with the prospect  of taking a cab to the museum, but since no taxi was in immediate sight, I ended up walking to the crosstown bus. Ditto with the return trip - I was briefly tempted by the line of taxis in front of the museum, but in the end, opted to take the bus, which, thankfully, came unusually quickly. I even got a seat right away. 

In any event, I'm glad I went,  though I didn't stay all that long, since Gallery 624 is relatively small. Its theme is Spanish religious art, and it holds a number of works by Murillo, Zurbaran, and Ribera (though I learn that Ribera spent basically his entire career in Italy, so whether his paintings should hang here seems to me an open question).  The lovely Murillo Madonna and child that was the subject of the entry for Day 226 has been moved here, as have three large lusterware trays from the European decorative arts galleries.

I immediately seize on Francisco de Zurbaran's "Agnus Dei" as the painting I want to write about. I'm pretty sure I saw this work in an exhibit of Spanish painting at the Guggenheim a number of years ago. I was wowed by it then, and I'm weighed by it now.  Against a plain dark background, a white lamb lies on a wooden table (an altar?) awaiting slaughter,  its foreelegs and rear legs bound together by a rope.  Its eyes are cast down as if in contemplation of what is to come. What's most remarkable is the skill with which Zurbaran has captured the animal's fleece, thick and shaggy on the lamb's back and rump, thin on its legs. 

The small scale of the painting (perhaps 28 inches long and 18 inches high) suggests to me that it was painted for devotional purposes. The lamb's suffering is to remind us of Christ's suffering before he died for our sins. But if I were the owner of this painting, I don't think I could bear looking at  it to aid contemplation or for anything else - it is so unspeakably sad.

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