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Juan [Jean] de la Huerta
(b Daroca, Aragon; fl 1431–62). Spanish sculptor. In 1443 he was working in the Carmelite convent at Chalon-sur-Saône, near Dijon; documents describe him as ‘Juan de la Huerta, called Daroca, native of Aragon, a carver of images, resident in Dijon’. On 11 August 1443 he was commissioned by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, to complete the tombs of John the Fearless and Margaret of Bavaria, begun by Claus de Werve for the Charterhouse of Champmol, Dijon. The contract specified that the double tomb was to be made of alabaster and was to resemble that of Philip the Bold (1384–1410; both tombs Dijon, Mus. B.-A.). Juan worked on the tomb and on other commissions for dignitaries in Dijon until 1456, when he left the city without finishing the ducal effigies (they were later completed by Antoine le Moiturier). He became established for a time in Autun in the service of Cardinal Jean Rolin, working in Chalon-sur-Saône and Maçon, where he is last mentioned as ‘poor and ill’ in November 1462. It has been suggested that he subsequently returned to Daroca and was responsible for the altarpiece and wall decoration of the chapel of Los Corporales in the Colegiata of Sta María, but, although this is closely related to Burgundian sculpture (and particularly to work by Claus de Werve), its style suggests an earlier date, in the first quarter of the 15th century. An attribution to Juan would presuppose a change in his style, which is characterized by agitated, demonstrative figures and complex draperies; it is more likely that he was apprenticed in Daroca while the work was being carried out, and that it encouraged him to move to Dijon to seek employment. New documentary evidence reveals that he never broke his ties with Aragon, where he kept lares et domicilium, which suggests that certain sculptures that are similar to those documented in Burgundy could be attributed to him. Therefore the image of the Virgin of Pilar in Zaragoza, made of multi-coloured wood, can be seen as a work of his that was carried out between 1434 and 1443 and that replaced a previous image destroyed by fire in the chapel of the cloister of the church of Sta María la Major of Zaragoza.
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