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Luisa Roldán, famously known as “La Roldana”, was a sculptor in the late 1600’s. Roldán used multiple techniques within her father’s, Pedro Roldán, workshop. She produced large figure wooden sculptures along with altar figures.[1] Roldan is recognized in the Hispanic Society Museum as “one of the few women artist to have maintained a studio outside the convents in Golden Age Spain”.[2] She was granted the position of Court Sculptor in 1689, which had not and still hasn’t been given to any other woman. Though Roldán was the “Escultor de Cámara”, or Court Sculptor, to Habsburg King Charles II, she experienced financial struggles. Just before her death, Roldan was given the title of “Academician Merit” from the Academy of Saint Luke in Rome.[3]  Antonio Palomino wrote on Roldan’s works noting her talent and character.[4]

LIFE

Luisa Roldan was born in Seville on September 8, 1652[5] to sculptor Pedro Roldán and Teresa de Ortega.[6] Luisa apprenticed in her father’s workshop and was trained by her father along with her other siblings in drawing and sculpture.

Also working within the workshop was Luis Antonio de los Arcos, whom was Roldán’s future husband. Despite her father’s disapproval, the two married in 1671 when Roldán was 19.[7] They created their own workshop together along with Roldán’s brother-in-law, Tomás de los Arcos, to create religious polychromed wooden sculptures. Roldán being the primary artist in carving[8] and her husband had expertise in flesh painting and gilding.[9]

She moved to Cadiz by 1683 [10] where she created her sculpture of the Ecce Homo. [11] Then Roldán moved to Madrid in late 1688 or late 1689, marked by the documentation of the baptism of her second child born on February 25, 1689. When first arriving in Madrid, she applied for the position of Court Sculptor and received the title of in 1692.[12] During the time of her career as Court Sculptor she found financial hardship. In attempts to quell her unfavorable position, she writes to Charles II’s wife, Queen Mariana for help and Mariana sends money that proves insufficient.[13] Luisa’s husband also gives effort to fix their economic situation by applying for a royal position, of which he is denied.

When Habsburg King Charles II passed away in 1700, the next in line, Philip V, required her to apply again to prove herself to be worthy of the position as Court Sculptor and she succeeds. On the day of her death Roldán received the “Academician of Merit”.[17]

Out of her seven children two died from malnutrition.[18] Only two of the seven children survive, Francisco and María de los Arcos, who are written to receive anything she has in her will.[19]

WORKS

During her career, Roldán produced many life size polychrome works[14] and created personal devotion terracotta pieces[15] along with other wooden figures of humans and animals.[16]

[1] “La Roldana's Saint Ginés: The Making of a Polychrome Sculpture.” Exhibitions & Instillations The J. Paul Getty Museum. (February 17, 2009–December 11, 2011) http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/roldana/index.html.

[2] “Arts of Spain & Portugal: Sculpture” The Hispanic Museum and Library. https://hispanicsociety.org/museum/arts-of-spain-portugal/sculpture-of-spain-portugal/.

[3] Xavier Bray, Patrick Lenaghan, Jose Luis Romero Torres & Helene Fontoira, Luisa Roldán: Court Sculptor to the Kings of Spain. Translated by Nicola Jennings & A. E. Suffield Madrid: Coll & Cortés, 2016.

[4] Bray, Lenaghan, Jose Torres & Fontoira

[5] “Cádiz Cofrade – Imagineía” http://www.cadizcofrade.net/imagineros/roldana.html.

[6] García-Martín, Elena “Gendered Representations of the Militant Church Ana Caro’s and Luisa Roldan’s Rhetoric of War and Religion” Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal Vol. 7 ( 2012): 69-100. https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/emw/article/view/18745/15680.

[7] Bray, Lenaghan, Jose Torres & Fontoira

[8] “La Roldana's Saint Ginés: The Making of a Polychrome Sculpture.” Exhibitions & Instillations The J. Paul Getty Museum. (February 17, 2009–December 11, 2011) http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/roldana/index.html.

[9]Narayan Khandekar and Michael Schilling “A Technical Examination of a Seventeenth-Century Polychrome Sculpture of St. Gines de la Jara by Luisa Roldan” Studies in Conversation Vol. 46, No. 1 (2001): 23-34. https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.ithaca.edu/stable/1506880?sid=primo&origin=crossref&seq=9#metadata_info_tab_contents.

[10] Elena García-Martín

[11] Bray, Lenaghan, Jose Torres & Fontoira

[12] Bray, Lenaghan, Jose Torres & Fontoira

[13] Bray, Lenaghan, Jose Torres & Fontoira

[14] “La Roldana's Saint Ginés: The Making of a Polychrome Sculpture.” Exhibitions & Instillations The J. Paul Getty Museum. (February 17, 2009–December 11, 2011) http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/roldana/index.html.

[15] “Arts of Spain & Portugal: Sculpture” The Hispanic Museum and Library. https://hispanicsociety.org/museum/arts-of-spain-portugal/sculpture-of-spain-portugal/.

[16] Bray, Lenaghan, Jose Torres & Fontoira

[17] Bray, Lenaghan, Jose Torres & Fontoira

[18] Elena García-Martín

[19] Bray, Lenaghan, Jose Torres & Fontoira