In Ictu Oculi
Painting by Juan de Valdés Leal / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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In Ictu Oculi (In the blink of an eye) is a very large oil on canvas painting by the Spanish Baroque artist Juan de Valdés Leal. It is dated to 1670-72, and was commissioned by the Brotherhood of Charity (Hermandad de la Caridad) lay confraternity for the Hospital de la Caridad, Seville, a resting place for the old and a burial ground for paupers.
The work is one of a pair of similar memento mori paintings - the other painting Finis Gloriae Mundi shows the remains of a bishop and knight. In Ictu Oculi shows the grim reaper carrying a coffin and scythe, triumphant among the remains of a now dead, but a formerly powerful and influential unidentified person. Both paintings are still in place just inside the hospital entrance. They are considered the pinnacle of his artistic achievement, to the extent that he has been, perhaps unfairly, referred to as the "painter of the dead".
A close copy by Reynoso dated to the 1860s–70s is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.[1]