Esteban Solórzano y el retablo de San Gil Abad de la iglesia de Ortilla (Huesca):

“Fazer las imáge nes en casa de maestre Forment con sus patrones de barro” (1537)

Abstract

In 1537, the council of Ortilla (Huesca) commissioned Esteban Solórzano, a painter, through the Huescan canon Martín de Santángel, to create the main sculpture altarpiece for the parish church of San Gil Abad. Solórzano was a disciple of the excellent sculptor Damián Forment and in the latter’s workshop the clay “patterns” were to be made, models for the thirteen images and the two wooden stories, as specified in the contract. The Renaissance altarpiece was dismantled in the 18th century, recomposed with great alterations, dedicating it to Saint Anthony of Padua and placed in the chapel of the transept on the Gospel side, with the loss of some carvings and others distributed in different parts of the same temple. Solórzano, due to accusations from witnesses in a trial in 1548, appears as an unrecommended person: “a drunkard, a gambler, an adulterer and a public concubinary”. In this interesting document, the envy and misgivings among the former members of the Forment workshop in Huesca are expressed.