In the last of the conferences that the Fundación Colegio Nª Sª de la Antigua scheduled to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the main altarpiece, the work of Francisco de Moure, Dr. Ana Diéguez suggested an insight that is of great interest to scholars of our main altarpiece and the Figura de Moure.
The issue is in the altarpiece bench, where the four evangelists and the four theological virtues can be seen carved in walnut.
The evangelist, Saint Matthew, is usually accompanied by an angel, most often, or by the figure of a man, less commonly. In the case of our altarpiece, we find Saint Matthew accompanied by a man, standing behind and clearly in dialogue with the evangelist. This man, beardless, with a bobbed head of hair and a turned-up mustache, similar to the style we call imperial today. He is wearing a loose shirt with wide shoulders and rounded tips. The style of his clothing and the addition of his long hair and mustache place us before a 17th-century man.
The question is: could this be a self-portrait by Moure? It was not unusual for artists of the time to depict themselves in their works. Therefore, we could answer that this is possibly the case. We will have to study this detail more closely and consider the possibility that Don Francisco de Moure gave us a“photograph” of himself from the first third of the 17th century.
Evangelist Saint Matthew with the possible self-portrait of Francisco de Moure
