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This painting is one of the best preserved works, as well as one of the most representative of the quality of the Italianate artists who arrived in Toledo at the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th centuries. The artist has been identified as a master of Italian origin, capable of composing the figures with the use of colour, with a certain degree of idealisation and monumentality which recalls Giotto's characters. It has been suggested that the itinerant painter Esteve Rovira, from Cyprus, may have executed these works in Toledo after becoming familiar with southern Italian art. The master Esteve Rovira was commissioned to paint the altarpiece in the Cathedral of Toledo in 1387, a period when he might have executed other works, among which this painting.

The painting still has the decorative frame with geometrical ornaments which probably framed all the scenes of the set and which is presently missing from the Nativity piece (inv. no. 69/128), to which it was linked. According to the museum's documentation, the original location of these works was a convent in the city of Toledo. Pieces of painted serge appear relatively frequently in the medieval documents of that period as part of the domestic trousseaux and religious goods of members of the clergymen, nobles and bourgeois. However, the high quality of these particular works, the religious context of Toledo where this type of drapery was abundantly used, and finally their conventual origin, all seem to indicate a public use, probably as drapes covering up an altarpiece, in accordance to specific festivities.

This representation of the Pietà can be considered as one of the first preserved examples of this large-format iconography within the Spanish territory. It reflects the influence of the liturgical dramas represented in Toledo, which urged onlookers to piety and devotion with one of the verses surrounding the composition: "Oh, you who cross / this sombre hill / I beg you to see / my sorrow and say / if there is sorrow equal to mine!" (Matilde Miquel Juan)

Selected bibliography

• Lasterra, Crisanto de. Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao : catálogo descriptivo : sección de arte antiguo. Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 1969. p. 60, n° cat. 129. (Con el título Cristo a la columna y Piedad, y atribuido a HORCAJO, Maestro de).
• Tesoros del Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao : pintura, 1400-1939 [Cat. exp.]. Madrid, El Viso, 1989. pp. 31-32, n° cat. 2. (Atribuida al Maestro de Horcajo)
• Capolavori dal Museo di Bellas Artes di Bilbao [Cat. exp.]. Roma, Leonardo-De Luca Editori, 1991. pp. 21-22, n° cat. 1. (Con el título Cristo legato alla colonna e Pietà, y atribuido al Maestro della Pietá)
• Zugaza, Miguel ... [et al.]. Maestros antiguos y modernos en las colecciones del Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao. Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2001. p. 13.
• Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao : guía. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2006. p. 14.
• Musée des Beaux Arts de Bilbao : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2006. p. 14.
• Bilbao Fine Arts Museum : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2006. p. 14.
• Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao : guía. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2011. p. 15, n° cat. 4.
• Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa : gida. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2012. p. 15, n° cat. 4.
• Miquel Juan, Matilde. "Pintura, devoción y piedad en Toledo a principios del siglo XV = Painting, devotion and piety in Toledo in the early 15th century = Pintura, debozioa eta pietatea XV. mendearen hasierako Toledon", Buletina = Boletín = Bulletin, n° 7. 2013. pp. 49-87, 239-253.
• Musée des Beaux Arts de Bilbao : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2014. p. 16.
• Bilbao Fine Arts Museum : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2014. p. 16.
• 110 Años 110 Obras [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 34-35, sin n° cat.
• 110 Ans 110 Oeuvres [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 34-35, sin n° cat.
• 110 Urte 110 Artelan [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 34-35, sin n° cat.
• 110 Years 110 Works [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 34-35, sin n° cat.
• Bilboko Museoaren alfabetoa = El alfabeto del Museo de Bilbao = The alphabet of the Bilbao Museum = L'alphabet du Musée de Bilbao [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 240, 245, n° cat. 135.