The Museo del Prado is focusing on the role of images in the relations between Jews and Christians in medieval Spain

The lost mirror. Jews and conversos in medieval Spain is the first major exhibition in terms of both the number and importance of works included to reconstruct a particular medieval mirror: the portrait of Jews and Jewish converts to Christianity devised by Christians in Spain between 1285 and 1492.

Organised in collaboration with the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, the exhibition features 71 works on display in Room C of the Jerónimos Building until 14 October 2024. Its visual discourse illustrates how images stimulated exchanges between Christians and Jews but also their key role in disseminating the growing anti-Judaism present in Christian society. Furthermore, it reveals the use of images to encourage the conversion of the Jews and to confirm the new Christian’s sincerity. Finally, the exhibition draws attention to the creation of images and staged settings during the early years of the Inquisition.

The altar frontals from Vallbona de les Monges, The Fountain of Life by the studio of Van Eyck, and Pedro Berruguete’s altarpieces for Santo Tomás in Ávila, among many other works from the Museum’s collection, are shown alongside major loans such as the Canticles of Alfonso X the Wise (Patrimonio Nacional), the Golden Haggadah (British Library), and the Fortalitium Fidei (Bibliothèque nationale de France), accompanied by an important selection of works from around thirty churches, museums, libraries, archives and private collections in Spain and abroad.

Curated by Joan Molina Figueras, head of the Department of Spanish Gothic Painting at the Museo del Prado, The lost mirror. Jews and conversos in medieval Spain, organised in collaboration with the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, presents a fascinating survey of the role of images in the relations between Jews and Christians in medieval Spain (1250-1492).

The central discourse of the exhibition is the perception held by Christians of Jews and, from 1391 onwards, of the converts (conversos) descended from them. The definition of a visual otherness with regard to these two sectors of society was determined by religious, social, political and even racial reasons; ultimately, by the beliefs, fears and concerns of Christians. The images in the exhibition remind us that while difference exists, otherness is constructed.

While numerous works on display are notable for their aesthetic merit (including creations by some of the greatest masters of Spanish Gothic art such as Pedro Berruguete, Bartolomé Bermejo, Fernando Gallego and Bernat Martorell), the exhibition also includes others of a different type created outside the canons of the history of styles, such as caricatures, garments imposed on victims of the Inquisition, engravings and unconventional sculptures. The intention is thus to offer the most complete and rigorous vision of a subject that can only be approached from a perspective which transcends the traditional boundaries of art history.

Between 1285 and 1492 images played a key role in the complex relations between Jews, conversos and Christians. While on the one hand they were an important medium for the transference of rites and artistic models between Jews and Christians while also providing a space for collaboration between artists from the two communities, on the other they contributed to spreading the growing anti-Judaism that existed within Christian society. In this context, the visual stigmatisation of Jews was a faithful reflection of the Christian vision, its beliefs and concerns, as such constituting a powerful instrument of identitary affirmation.

Following the mass conversion of Jews to Christianity as a result of the pogroms of 1391, cult images occupied a central position in the debate, becoming the proof required to confirm the new Christians’ sincerity or, conversely, to accuse them of practising Jewish rites. The spread of these images suspected to be Judaizing and heretical lies at the origins of the founding of the Spanish Inquisition in 1478. Aware of the power of images, the new Inquisition made intensive use of them, either to create imposing settings or to define formulas that visually identified converts.

One of the exhibition’s unique features is its presentation of a group of works and iconographic programmes that are unique in Europe as they reflect the particular circumstances that determined inter-religious relations in the Peninsular kingdoms between the 13^th and 15^th centuries. These are the images associated with the problematic issue of the conversos, conceived either to encourage conversion or to confirm the new Christians’ sincerity. Equally original are the cycles and images conceived during the early period of the Spanish Inquisition, both programmes for churches and works of a propagandistic nature.

The exhibition includes 69 works in different media (painting, sculpture, illuminated manuscripts, goldsmiths work, drawings, etc) loaned from around thirty churches, museums, libraries, archives and private collections in Spain and abroad.