Allegorical Woodwork Panel In Wood And Golden Stucco Nineteenth

Panel of wood paneling and gilded stucco, curved, with a light blue ground with a cartouche richly framed by carved ornaments.

- The cartridge has five compartments, a large central one and four small ones at the corners. The lower compartments are inhabited by two evangelists (Saint Mark on the left with the lion and Saint Luke on the right with his bull). The two upper compartments left empty.

- The central field presents a captivating iconography to be deciphered. A seated male character (God the Father) is enthroned in the sky on a cloud, he carries a small globe in his left hand, the latter represents the world, the Earth, the universe. From this figure emanates a fan of light rays. Just below, an angel with her head thrown back is falling, flames coming out of her hands. This fallen angel would presumably be Satan (Luke 10.18 "Jesus said to them, I saw Satan falling from heaven like lightning. 19 Behold, I have given you power to walk on serpents and scorpions, and on all the power of enemy; and nothing can harm you".

- On the left stand two female figures. The first, richly dressed in a red cloak, wearing a papal tiara of the same color, holding under her right arm the model of a building (a church in the form of a temple like the one found as an attribute of figures allegorical images of Europe to evoke the Roman Church, example of 17th century engraving), holding in his right hand a triple pontifical cross and in his left hand a key. This figure represents the Roman Catholic Church. On his left, another woman, a scale in her right hand, a bundle of rods and an ax in the left, her gaze turned towards her neighbour, embodies Justice. This group of female figures sitting on a cloud seems to crush a male figure. This is an allegory of vanquished heresy. As in Coysevox's bronze bas-relief "Religion Conquering Heresy", the prostrate and naked man holds the mask of duplicity and is reclining on a book, the Bible, and a serpent.

- On the right, a third female figure behind an open book and a feather in hand evokes the Scriptures, thus echoing the presence of the aforementioned evangelists. - In front of her, an old man with a beard and gray hair, in a languid pose facing us, holding a scythe in his right hand and accompanied by an hourglass on the ground, symbolizes Saturn-Cronos, a symbolic representation of time which passes and which reaps the life of the living

- Finally, in the lower part in the center, there is a character of a monarch, identifiable by the crown placed on a cushion and the scepter which he holds in his right hand. Positioned three-quarters, gaze towards the viewer, hand resting on the hip protruding the elbow, an attitude sign of power frequently reproduced. He is in full war dress and wears a red cloak rolled up over the left shoulder, showing the ermine lining. He wears the insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece.

- The artist arrives at a composition taking up the whole of the tradition (of the image of the earthworks of the Heresy by the Church) and ordered around the royal power. The monarch is probably summoned to illustrate one of the facets of the king's action since the Order of the Golden Fleece, although secular, has the mission of working for the Glory of God and the defense of Religion . The mission of the Order was the safeguard of the Catholic faith and the protection of the Church.

- Good condition, restorations at the level of polychromy and stuccos are to be noted.