To the Augustinian Recollect saints of Rafael Nieto and the portraits of priors by René Paglinawan, now adds after its reorganization and new arrangement a gallery of Augustinian Recollect bishops, with the incorporation of a portrait of the emeritus bishop of Tarazona.
It is an Augustinian Recollect saints in stylized design for vinyl, the work of the Augustinian Recollect Rafael Nieto (San Millán de la Cogolla, La Rioja, Spain, 1972). As far as we know, it is the only complete existing in the Order.
The second gallery is almost contemporary with the previous one and is due to another recoleto artist, René Paglinawan (Cebu City, Philippines, 1956). It is a large-scale project, which continues open. It is made up of 52 pastel portraits of the Recollect priors who have succeeded each other in Marcilla since 1865.
On May 31, with the fixing of the pertinent signs, the third gallery, dedicated to the bishops of the Province of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine, which occupies, mainly, the south cloister of the old Cistercian monastery. Mainly, we say, because the oldest and most valuable nucleus from the artistic point of view is made up of the paintings by José María Romero y López (Seville, 1816 – Madrid, 1894), which decorates the so-called “Royal flush”.
Romero’s portraits
The five bishops portrayed by this Sevillian romantic painter embellish the landing that crowns the royal staircase, on the main floor. Its theme and Romero’s signature justify amply the new placement, even though the framing denounces the different location original.
The three oldest bishops –18th-19th centuries: Sesé, Encabo and Juan Ruiz– make up the block first, with exclusive cartouches and frame.
The portrait of Leandro Arrué, on the other hand, combines with the other historical-themed paintings that fill the cloisters of Marcilla. Among them we must count the portraits of two other bishops, both from Philippine dioceses: José Aranguren, Archbishop of Manila, and Mariano Cuartero, Bishop of New Segovia. Due to antiquity these should also have been included here; just that, for unknown reasons, Romero did not paint them.
Finally, the characteristics of the painting that represents Monsignor Minguella indicate a different origin. We know that, at the end of the 40s, it was cornered and poorly preserved.
On the other hand, it is one of the ones that we can date with greater precision, between August and November from 1894, and it must necessarily be one of the last painted by Romero.
Ancient bishops
The type of framing clearly differentiates a second block made up of the bishops of late 19th century and early decades of the 20th. Specifically, a second painting by Minguella and the portraits of Ezekiel Moreno, Nicolás Casas and Andrés Ferrero. The author is not known authors; but they must not be professionals.
The following painting, of a very different size, serves as the central axis of the cloister South Exhibition . It is an old painting that has recently been donated to us by one of the communities collections of Zaragoza. It also represents a bishop, none other than Saint Thomas of Villanova. Bag in hand, the holy beggar distributes coins among the poor who besiege him.
Modern part
Next begins the modern part of the gallery. The central block is formed by the four works by the artist José Antonio Pérez Fabo (Marcilla, Navarra, 1942). One of them does not represent a bishop but to the Augustinian Recollect Pedro Fabo, founder of the Panamanian Academy of Spanish language and relative of the painter.
It has its place here due to obvious stylistic similarities and as a model that was for the portraits of three of the bishops: two from Kweiteh/Shangqiu (Henan, China), Francisco Javier Ochoa and Arturo Quintanilla, and Martín Legarra, Bishop of Bocas de Toro and Santiago de Veraguas, in Panama.
Among them, in attention to the chronological order, a painting from Mexico has been inserted. depicting Monsignor Justo Goizueta showing the cathedral of his diocese, Madera, in Chihuahua. It is the work of the muralist Alonso Enríquez Blanco (Cuauhtémoc City, Chihuahua, Mexico, 1959).
Along with those by Romero, the most valuable work in the collection from an artistic point of view, it is the portrait of Monsignor Eusebio Hernández, Bishop Emeritus of Tarazona (Spain). just a simple glance to immediately detect the hyper-realistic touch of Isabel Guerra Peñamaría (Madrid, 1947), renowned Cistercian nun of the Monastery of Santa Lucía, in Zaragoza.
The last portrait, made life-size, is that of Cardinal Antonio Vico, who as pontifical nuncio, he presided over the Chapter of San Millán in 1908, which inaugurated the modern stage of the Augustinian Recollection. We do not know who painted it, although it seems to be a copy of the one displayed in the Monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla (La Rioja, Spain) next to the sacristy where the capitular sessions were held.
Finally, making a global balance of the episcopal gallery of Marcilla, it is obvious its eminently historical character. Compared to the past, when the number of Augustinian Recollects bishops was relatively small, it can be considered representative, and even quite complete, something that cannot be said of recent times, waiting for new additions of the current prelates, so numerous.
