Pedro de Mena y Medrano (1628–1688) is nowadays the most highly regarded master of Spanish Baroque sculpture, on a par with his contemporaries, the great seventeenth-century painters Velázquez, Zurbarán and Murillo. Mena’s contributions to Spanish Baroque sculpture are unsurpassed in both technical skill and expressiveness of his religious subjects. His ability to sculpt the human body was remarkable, and he excelled in creating figures and scenes for contemplation. This first monograph of Pedro de Mena shows a lot of details and remarkable images of his hyper-realistic sculptures, full of Spanish passion. Apart from the article by curator Xavier Bray, it also features important contributions by José Luis Romeo Torres, curator of the monographic exhibition Pedro de Mena, to be held in Málaga in 2019.

Since 2002, Xavier Bray has been assistant curator of 17th- and 18th-century European paintings at the National Gallery, London. José Luis Romero Torres is art historian and conservator at the Patrimonio Histórico de la Junta de Andalucía.