BARTOLOMÉ ESTEBAN MURILLO | The Pietà

Justino de Neve (1625–1685);
From whom acquired by Don Nicolás Omazur (d. 1698);
Possibly Queen María Luisa, Buen Retiro Palace, Madrid;
Anonymous sale, London, 15 April 1813;
Where acquired by Hugh A. J. Munro of Novar, London;
His deceased sale, London, Christie's 1 June 1878, lot 62 (as Murillo), to S.H. Fraser;
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 7 May 1904, lot 60 (as Murillo), to Bloefeld;
Anonymous sale, New York, Christie's, 15 January 1985, lot 185 (as Studio of Murillo);
There acquired by the present collector. 

W. Stirling Maxwell, Annals of the Artist of Spain, 1848, vol. III, p. 1431;
C.B. Curtis, Velasquez and Murillo, 1833, cat. no. 2271;
D. Angulo Iñiguez, Murillo, Madrid 1981, vol. II, cat. no. 1.675 (under "obras discutibiles");
Probably W.B. Jordan, “A Forgotten Legacy. Murillo’s Cabinet Pictures on Stone, Metal and Wood”, in Bartolomé Estaban Murillo (1617-1682). Paintings from American Private Collections, exhibition catalogue, 2002, pp. 68, 194, under footnotes 29-33. 

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This octagonal work on copper has not been recently restored. The lighter pigments are mostly in very good state, and it can be seen that the quality is impressive. There are numerous unrestored small losses in the darker colors to the right of Christ's head, throughout the red and golden clothing of the Madonna, in the darker colors of the lower sky, around—but not within—the two putti, and in a few spots on the far right. These losses often develop in works on copper. There are no retouches of any note, except possibly to the left of the crown of thorns. This work should be properly restored.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This cabinet-size Pietá on copper belongs to a rare but highly prized portion of Murillo's output. Works on hard surfaces, or láminas, were produced by Murillo in small quantities throughout his career for only his most discerning patrons. That Murillo painted a number of láminas (on copper, obsidian and other stone) is attested to by the record of such works in extant documentation from the 17^th and 18^th centuries. In the inventory drawn up on the death of the artist’s son Gaspar in 1685, no less than nine are recorded. On the death of the artist’s great patron and original owner of this picture, Don Justino de Neve in 1685, his other principal patron Don Nicolás Omazur acquired a further seven. Despite the clear documentation of these works however, only a relatively small number of láminas by the artist have been correctly identified today. This is perhaps partly due to the reluctance of the leading Murillo expert of the 20^th century, Diego Angulo Iñiguez, to accept any such works, adhering rigidly to his interpretation of the word lámina as panel. In his seminal monograph on Murillo (published in 1981) he includes all works listed as on copper, including the present example, under ‘obras discutibles’ (uncertain attributions). More recently however, the subject was reconsidered in detail by Professor William B. Jordan, as a result of which a number of these works have been correctly restored to the artist’s oeuvre.¹ Thanks to recent research, the present work has been be connected to the collections of the important aforementioned early champions of Murillo: Don Justino de Neve and Don Nicolás Omazur. Jordan describes the Pietá from their collections as lost, though in great detail through Omazur's posthumous inventory.²  According to Jordan, the copper Pietá was likely paired with a Holy Family with Saint John, also on copper and of identical size and octagonal construction today in the Landsdowne collection at Bowood House.³ These two works appear to have been separated sometime in the early 1800's, as the Pietá alone entered the famed British collection of Hugh A. J. Munro of Novar in 1813 (fig. 1). Following his landmark series of sales 1878 the picture was largely forgotten, likely due to the misunderstanding of these unique objects as a collective whole. 

Murillo’s láminas were conceived as independent works intended for personal devotion, as opposed to his small-scale preparatory sketches, which are freer and more summarily executed. Indeed, Murillo’s works on copper exhibit what Jordan describes as an “exquisite balance of spontaneity and finish”. In this example, Murillo demonstrates his ability to translate a large-scale composition into the scale of the individual viewer. Specifically, he has reinterpreted the large Pietá originally executed for the Iglesia de los Capuchinos in Seville (fig. 2) and provided an equally powerful, yet intimately scaled object for spiritual and intimate devotion. 

We are grateful to Benito Navarette and Enrique Valdivieso for endorsing the attribution to Murillo and for their assistance in the cataloguing of this lot. 

1. see W.B. Jordan, “A Forgotten Legacy. Murillo’s Cabinet Pictures on Stone, Metal and Wood”, in Bartolomé Estaban Murillo (1617-1682). Paintings from American Private Collections, exhibition catalogue, 2002, pp. 63-73.
2. Ibid. "Yten una lamina ochavada pintada Ntra. Sra. y Nro. Sor. Jesus Xpto vajado de la Cruz y unos Angelitos llorando original del dho Murillo con su moldura dorada de plata fina y cavecitas de angelitos de bronze sobre dorado."
3. Ibid. p. 68.