This beautifully carved semi-circular altarpiece sits behind the statues in the Chapel of the Holy Burial of Christ in the Castrense Church of Santo Domingo. It is surrounded by dried flowers. I have not found much information about the architecture of the church, either in Spanish or English, except for what is listed below. This work of art was likely made from local wood and carved by a local artist, perhaps during the 1973 renovations.
Church History:
"The military church of Santo Domingo is a Catholic temple located on Calle Mayor in the Spanish city of Cartagena (Murcia Region).
The church stands as an annex to the convent of San Isidoro, built in 1580 to be occupied by the mendicant order of the Dominicans. In 1690, the cofradía of the marrajos added a chapel, which used as a seat and exit of the procession of Holy Friday.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the church was used in 1823 as a caballeriza of the French troops during the intervention of the Cien Mil Hijos de San Luis in favor of absolutism, and on July 25, 1835 the convent was affected by the royal decree, for which the suppression of conventual properties was ordered. This resolution entered the context of the imminent confiscation of President Juan Álvarez Mendizábal (1836), of the form that transformed the convent into private property of the Picó family (who lifted the botanical disappearance of Calle Mayor), who made it only as religious property.
In 1875, the church was under the protection of the Spanish army and the patronage of San Fernando, so that the mentality was changing in Santo Domingo, which had prevailed until the present day. During the Civil War, there was significant damage that prevented the use by the Marajo cofrades during Holy Week.
It underwent major renovations and restorations throughout its existence, until 1973, which were noted in the entire church. Today, it is fully functional under the Archbishopric of Castrense.
The church consists of a rectangular nave with brick walls and two large chapels on the Epistle side, one belonging to the marrajos, and the other to the former brotherhood of the Rosary.
The triumphal arch that separates the presbytery from the rest of the nave is semicircular, this style predominating in the rest of the arches and the chapels, which are also lowered and raised. The roof of the central nave is barrel vaulted, as is the main chapel. At the foot of it are the choir and the bell tower, whose structure has one body and two openings."
Google translation from Wikipedia: (
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