Novo-Hispanic school. Mexico. Late 17th century. Nicolás De Correa (1660-1720) Adoration of the Ecce Homo, Man of Sorrows, Lord of the Green Reed, Holy Christ of Humility and Patience, or Most Holy Christ of the Cold Stone'. Oil on canvas. 118 x 188 cm. A perfect scene enclosed in a painting of large dimensions, which looks like the passage of a suffering and serene Christ in Easter week in any corner of Spanish geography. The large scene, framed in period gilded cane, is completely filled by the central, mystical figure. Seated and serene, resigned and with all the acceptance of the divine will on his face, bearing our sins, he is silent and mute in the face of the executioners who mock, spit on him and insult him, as the Gospels narrate. Seated on a pilaster, or 'cold stone', as the text of John 3. 16 reads on its front: 'In hoc apparuit charitas Dei in nobis, qvoniam filivm svvm vnigenitvm misit Devs in mvndvm. Vt vivamvs per tvm.' (For this is why the Love of God appeared in us, because God sent His only begotten Son into the world, so that we might live through Him.) Above Christ, two angels, flying and weeping, carry a wide, almost mournful phylactery, like a banner, with some verses from the Song of Songs 3, 11: 'EGREDIMINI ET VIDETE FILIAE SION REGEN SALOMONEM/ IN DUADEMATE...., [QUI CORONAVIT ILLUM MATER SUA].... (Go forth, ye daughters of Zion, and behold King Solomon with the crown [with which his mother].... and so ends the verse, though he is not.... [his mother] crowned him on his wedding day, on the day of his heart's joy). The procession is opened by two angels, standing like ceremonial candle holders to the right and left of the central cross, which is Christ himself. One carries the cross which he will be nailed to and die on; the other, the pillar of his scourging and sufferings, with the cock that crowed at Peter's betrayal. On the right and left, all around the crowd that fills the back, are the angels of the Passion, sacredly carrying symbols and instruments of the Lord's Passion, 'a great cloud of spectators surrounds us' (Heb 12:1-4; Ps 21; Mk 14). In the box, on the left, are Mary Magdalene, Mary his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary of Clopas, the mother of James and Joseph; all with the beloved disciple John. On the right is Mark the Evangelist with the lion, whose gospel described this scene so heartbreakingly, amidst an audience of praying and worshipping saints. A picture for meditation and contemplation, 'eyes fixed on Him who endured pain and the cross, who tasted death on behalf of all, tested by what He suffered, and who, suffering, learned obedience'. All perfectly described by the evangelist present in the picture. For all of us who approach this scene, it is a great spectacle in which we take part 'as if we were present'. As the psalm says, 'all who seek you, O Lord, and behold you, all who behold you, who behold in us also that wondrous spectacle of your own salvation'. Sadly, on the back of the canvas there is an illegible text, due to the use of bad ink, or the use of very watery watercolours, which the humidity and the passage of time have gradually erased.