SIMÃO RODRIGUES - C. 1560-1629 O Beijo de Judas oil on wood restoration Dimensões (altura x comprimento x largura) - 137 x 117 cm Notes: This very interesting Portuguese mannerist work from around 1600, from an ancient and fragmented altarpiece of unknown origin, is a valuable testimony to the phase of the great serial production that was conventionally called Contra-Maniera (the Counter-Reform Mannerism) and the art of the one who, in the sixteenth to the seventeenth century transition, was its most illustrious representative. It represents the arrest of Jesus in the moment of the Kiss of Judas, including the dynamic sub-theme of St. Peter's cutting off Malchus' ear, which occupies the foreground of the composition. Simão Rodrigues, its author, was already considered in 1589 «hum dos milhores pimtores de imaginaria de olio que há nestes Reynos», also executing fresco painting and as an illuminator, having been praised by the demanding treatist Felix da Costa Meesen, in 1696, for being "«homem de raro engenho, e mui fasil no pintar», which is confirmed by the fine drawing quality of this Kiss of Judas, inspired by the the  Roman models of Gregory XIII and Sixtus V’s time, in which the painter was taught. The theme, which Simon repeated on one of the sacristy panels of the Old Cathedral of Coimbra (c. 1607), today in the Machado de Castro National Museum, as well as on two workshop panels, one in the altarpiece of Tancos Holy House of Mercy (circa 1600), exhibited in the Diocesan Museum of Santarém, and another in the church of Santa Maria do Castelo in Torres Vedras, is dealt with compositional elegance and didascalic sense, paying attention to details of chiaroscuro that the notturno atmosphere accentuates. Simon certainly saw the frescoes of the Oratorio del Gonfalone in Rome, where he may have taken inspiration for this accurate composition. His art, in fact, follows the same models of pittura senza tempo of tridentine bond, especially those of the Roman painting of the generation of Federico Zuccaro, Cesare Nebbia or Livio Agresti, without forgetting Pomarâncio, and the example of Portuguese Campelo, in which took inspiration in more than one work. It is this same late-Mannerist language that dominated the imaginary canons of the Counter-Reformation in the Jubilee years circa 1600 that one feels in this painting so observant to the clareza of devotional discourse. As was first highlighted by Adriano de Gusmão, in the book Simão Rodrigues e seus colaboradores (1956), the painter's most individualized works attest to a quality that surpasses those of his contemporaries, as seen in the works of Coimbra (sacristy of Mount Carmel Church and The University Chapel). He directed a very industrious workshop in the parish of Socorro, in Lisbon, where several followers took part, such as the future royal painter Domingos Vieira Serrão (circa 1565-1632), and several others of whom the names and works are known, which led that many of the commissions generated in this area suffer from formula repetition and reveal finishing weaknesses. This is not the case with this splendid painting of the Kiss of Judas, straight out of the master's hands. It is a very typical work of his direct repertoire, with the sturdiness of the bearing of the figures (the posture of the soldiers, for example, is repeated on the panels like those of the old 1611 altarpiece of Santa Cruz in Coimbra, today in the sacristy of Mount Carmel Church of the city), as well as the strong sense of pathos that chiaroscuro modelling accentuates.  Finally, one can attest to the effortlessness of the drawing in the very personal way of portraying the foreshortening of heads, which are valid as signatures of the artist.

Vítor Serrão,
Art historian.

Cabral Moncada Leilões ackowledges and thanks Professor Doctor Vítor Serrão for the historical and artistic framework of the work in matter.