The wall paintings in the rooms and cloister of the convent of St. Francis (Huéscar, Granada). History, iconography and restoration procedures

Abstract

The convent of the “unshod” Franciscans in Huéscar, secularised in 1836 and now much altered, retains a series of wall paintings, a unique record of the pictorial cycle of the supremacy of the order and its devotional character. From 2020 to 2021 a two-stage restoration was undertaken, under the auspices of Huéscar’s Municipal Activation Plan, stabilising the existing paintings and uncovering others that had remained concealed. The grisailles are distributed between the so-called Theologians’ Hall and the cloister, and the work includes historical and artistic research and iconographic identification.