Miguel del Prado

Private collection, Valencia, since at least the early 19^th century;

Thence by descent to the present owner.

 

González Martí, Museum, vol. IV, Barcelona, 1914-16, p. 402, as Los Fernandos;

L. Tramoyeres Blasco, Archivo de Arte Valenciano, vol. V, Valencia 1919, p. 87 and 96, as Los Fernandos;

L. de Saralegui, Archivo Español de Arte, vol. XVIII, Madrid 1945, p. 21, as Miguel de Prado or Miguel Esteve;

C.R. Post, A History of Spanish Painting. The Valencian School in the Early Renaissance, vol. XI, Cambridge 1953, re-print New York 1970, pp. 328-29, no. 134, reproduced, as Miguel del Prado or Miguel Esteve (?);

Exhibition catalogue, Los Hernandos, Valencia, Museo de Bellas Artes, 5 March – 5 May 1998, p. 117, cat. no. 13.2, reproduced p. 117, as Miguel del Prado.

This beautiful treatment of The Dormition of the Virgin was painted in Valencia during the first quarter of the 16^thcentury and reveals the clear influence that Leonardo da Vinci and his followers exerted on an important group of painters working in Valencia in the Italian High Renaissance style. Due to its remarkable quality and close stylistic affinities, the painting was for many years attributed to the leading Valencian masters, Fernando Llanos and Fernando Yañez de la Almedina, and it was only in recent years that the painting has been rightfully restored to the oeuvre of one of their closest disciples, Miguel del Prado, an attribution endorsed by the late Dr. Fernando Benito Doménech, former Director of the Museo de Bellas Artes,Valencia.

The composition of The Dormition of the Virgin is inspired by a treatment of the subject that forms part of the great masterpiece of Valencian painting, the retablo executed by Fernando Llanos and Fernando Yañez de Almedina (collectively known as ‘Los Hernandos’), painted for the high altar in Valencia Cathedral and still in situ today (see Fig. 1).¹ Although the two treatments differ markedly in format (the Hernandos’ panel being horizontal), in the disposition of the figures, and in many of the details, the overall mise-en-scène of the present picture clearly echoes that of Los Hernandos’ design.

The attribution to Miguel del Prado was first tentatively proposed by the great 20^th century Hispanic scholar Chandler Post in 1953.²  On account of documentary evidence he identified a series of frescoes in the chapel of the Ayuntamiento in Valencia as being a collaborative work between Miguel del Prado and Miguel Esteve, painted in 1518-20. At the time there were insufficient grounds for distinguishing between the styles of the two artists and as such the small oeuvre of stylistically related pictures assembled by Post was assigned by the scholar to both Miguel del Prado and Miguel Esteve. Among this distinctive group of pictures are individual studies of Saint Paul and Saint John the Evangelist, which were among few works to survive the partial destruction of the Ayuntamiento in Valencia in 1860.³ In the overall figure types and handling, these pictures can be compared closely to the present work, although their inferior quality suggests that our picture belongs to a more assured phase from the artist’s maturity.

As rightly pointed out by Post, a painting of The Pentecost that he lists as in the Lacuadra Collection, Valencia, closely relates to the present work and both paintings in all probability proceed from the same retablo, which is likely to have represented The Seven Joys of the Virgin similar to that by Pablo da San Leocadio.⁴  Whilst for many years Post considered both panels to be the work of Los Hernandos, by the time of his 1953 publication he assigned them to Miguel del Prado/Miguel Esteve ‘in a phase of his output when he was following their manner more closely than usual and almost succeeded in attaining their technical levels.’ He suggests that the high quality of the two panels and their close dependence on the style of Los Hernandos can in all probability be explained on the basis that the artist worked under the great masters’ immediate supervision.

In more recent years the late Dr. Fernando Benito Doménech was able to distinguish separate styles and oeuvres for Miguel del Prado and Miguel Esteve. The present work can be assigned to the former by comparison, for example, with his Retablo de San Vicente Ferrer and panels of San Agustín and San Nicolás de Tolentino, all today in the Museo de Bellas Artes, Valencia. Whilst these aforementioned paintings appear to be by the same hand as our picture, once again The Dormition of The Virgin is characterised by a far greater level of sophistication and refinement and indeed can justifiably claim to be the artist’s finest known work.

 

1. See the exhibition catalogue, Los Hernandos,Valencia, Museo de Bellas Artes, 5 March – 5 May 1998, pp. 66-117,nos. 2-13, reproduced.

2. See C.R. Post, A History of Spanish Painting. The Valencian School in the Early Renaissance, vol. XI, New York 1970 reprinted edition, pp. 307 onwards.

3. See C.R. Post, op. cit., pp. 310-11, reproduced figures 123 & 124.

4. For a reproduction of the Pentecost see C.R. Post, op. cit., p. 331, figure 135.