Angel Carrying a Thurible

The Carthusians of Jerez de la Frontera were an enclosed order. They lived alone in their cells, came together for a few offices, and saw almost no outsiders. In 1638 they commissioned a large group of paintings from Zurbarán for their monastery, and this angel belonged to it. It hung in the corridor running to the sacrarium, the room where the consecrated bread was kept, which means it was made to be looked at by a few dozen silent men and by practically nobody else. The angel carries a thurible, the censer swung on chains to spread burning incense, and it is painted on a wooden panel rather than canvas, a little over a metre tall. In 1836 the Spanish state suppressed the monastery and the cycle was split up. Four of the large altar canvases ended up in Grenoble, others in Poznań and New York, and this angel and its companion went to the museum in Cádiz.