Portrait of Cardinal Tavera on marble

Pedro Salazar y Mendoza, administrator of the Hospital de Tavera, in his work Chronico de el Cardenal don Iuan Tauerapublished in Toledo in 1603, says about the Cardinal that: "He also showed his great modesty in that he did not allow himself to be portrayed, although many brave painters and sculptors tried to do so, particularly Alonso de Berruguete, who was one of the most celebrated of that time. The portrait that was placed in the chapterhouse of his church, and others that are in the hospital, were made after his death, by order or by the hand of Berruguete himself.". In this portrait, painted on a marble slab, the cardinal is shown wearing a purple bonnet, dressed in a white robe and with his eyelids closed because he is reading a book, presumably, given its format, a breviary, which he rests on his cardinal's capelet. The work has traditionally been attributed to Alonso de Berruguete, an attribution confirmed by the foremost expert on his work, Manuel Arias (2011), who states that "the evidence of the formal study makes it possible to reaffirm the paternity and to restore it to its catalogue."In terms of style, he links it to the chromaticism and speed of execution of the paintings in his altarpiece of the Mazuelas in the convent of Santa Úrsula in Toledo and, in terms of the support, he relates it to the alabaster that one of the members of his circle in Toledo, the canon fabriquero of Toledo, López de Ayala, demanded for the portrait of Maria de Mendoza as a guarantee of durability.