The Fountain of Life

The subject of this highly complex work is based on passages in the Book of Revelation, chapters XXI and XXII. Christ is shown enthroned in a pose of blessing, with the Lamb seated at his feet, between Mary and John the Evangelist; on the tier below them are angels making music. Below that, an octagonal fountain is filled with holy water that flows from under Christ's throne, as well as numerous hosts, the symbol of Christ's bodily sacrifice. At lower left are prelates and other men representing the Catholic Church, while at lower right-Christ's "sinister," or left, side-is the defeated Synagogue, representative of the Old Testament overthrown by the New. The Hebrew inscriptions on the work, from the book of Psalms, make reference to bread and wine (interpreted as precursors to the bread and wine symbolized by Christ's body and blood); the Latin text is from the Song of Solomon, which refers to a "fountain of the gardens, well of living waters."

This brightly colored, crisply executed painting was made in Spain, as indicated by its combination of pinewood panel and gypsum ground, as opposed to the oak wood and chalk ground used in the Netherlands. The work is related to an earlier painting attributed to Netherlandish artist Jan van Eyck and his workshop that was donated by Henry IV of Castile to the Monastery of El Parral in Segovia in 1455 and is now in the Museo Nacional del Prado. Another version of the painting, dated around 1560, is in Segovia Cathedral.

The AMAM painting has heraldry at the top of the panel that identifies its patron as García de Loaysa y Girón (1534-1599), archbishop of Toledo and tutor of the future King Philip III. By the late 18th century, the painting was likely in Palencia Cathedral, where it was documented by Antonio Ponz (1725-1792).