In wood, he has left two heads of the Dolorosa and a Conception, artistically colored.
BALTASAR DE ECHAVE.
We have the scantiest personal notices of Baltasar de Echave, commonly called Echave the elder, to distinguish him from the painter of the same name, his son, who is designated as Echave the younger; but although these data are scanty, they are abundant in comparison with those which are preserved of other painters (of the time), of whom we know only the names. He was a Basque, born in Zumaya, in the Province of Guipúzcoa, and besides being a painter was a philologist, having published a work upon the antiquity of the language of Cantabria. He has several sons, of whom two were painters. Torquemada states that, at the time when he was writing his Monarquia Indiana (1609), Echave finished his great retable of the Church of Santiago Tlaltelolco; further, it is known by the examination of his works, that already in 1601, he was painting, as the colossal canvas of San Cristóbal, which bears that date, shows, and that still in 1640, the activity of his brush had not ceased, since in that year he executed the Martyrdom of Santa Catarina for the Dominicans of Mexico....
His fecundity did not prevent his pictures from having that completeness and detailed study which makes them so agreeable; yet, at times he falls into carelessness of drawing, which cannot at all be attributed to lack of skill, but to the fact that his pictures were generally destined to occupy high places in churches, rendering unnecessary a minute attention to finishing, unappreciable at a great distance and in the feeble light of the interior of churches....