Attributed to Alonso Cano

Louis-Philippe, King of the French (1773-1850), by 1838;

By whom given to the Louvre as part of the Galerie Espagnole;

Restored to the King as his private property after the Revolution of 1848;

By descent to his heirs, by whom sold London, Christie’s, 7 May 1853, lot 144, as Zurbaran;

Whence bought by William Cavew, Brentry House, near Bristol;

His sale, London, Christie’s, 29 June 1854, lot 7 (as Zurbarán);

Whence bought by Graves on behalf of William Stirling, later Sir William Stirling Maxwell, 9th Baronet (1818-1878), Keir;

By descent at Keir to Colonel William Stirling;

By whom sold, London, Christie’s, 14 December 1990, lot 39;

With Stanley Moss, New York;

From whom acquired by the present owner in 2000.

Notice de la Galerie espagnole, Paris 1838, cat. no. 335; 

J. Baticle and C. Marina, La Galerie espagnole de Louis-Philippe au Louvre 1838-1848, Paris 1981, p. 221, cat. no. 345, p. 279, reproduced.

Despite the evident quality of this small painting on copper depicting Christ as Priest, the precise authorship of this devotional work remains the matter of some debate amongst scholars. The painting is first recorded as in the collection of Louis-Philippe, King of the French, and was exhibited at the Galerie Espagnole in the Louvre from 1838 until 1848. At the time it was given to the great Sevillian master Francisco de Zurbarán, under whose authorship it re-appeared when sold by the heirs of Louis-Philippe at auction at Christie’s in London in 1853. At the sale it was acquired by Graves on behalf of another great Spanish collector, William Stirling, later Sir William Stirling Maxwell, 9th Baronet (1818-1878), remaining in the collection of his descendants for nearly a century and a half. In 1981 however the attribution to Zurbarán was rejected by Jeanine Baticle and Christine Marina (on the basis of a black and white photograph) in their compendium on the Galerie Espagnole. When the painting was sold at auction by the descendants of Sir William Stirling Maxwell at Christie’s in London in 1990 it was tentatively attributed to another of the great 17^th century masters working in Seville, Alonso Cano. Following a cleaning and further study in New York the attribution to Cano was fully endorsed by Dr. William Jordan, who dated the painting to around 1638-40, shortly after Cano’s move from Seville to Madrid.

Jordan was the first to identify the subject of the painting as the miraculous vision of the Venerable Doña Marina de Escobar (1554-1633). Born in Valladolid in 1554 to a prosperous family, Dona Marina felt a strong religious inclination at an early age and was closely connected to the Jesuit Order. In 1587, at the age of 33, she began to have regular mystical visions which were subsequently recorded in her biography by her friend, the influential Jesuit P. Luis de la Puente. She developed a large number of devout followers from all walks in life and had close connections with important figures at the Royal court (including the Infanta Maria Anna, sister to Philip IV and future Queen of Hungary), originating from the time it was based in Valladolid (1601-06). Doña Marina became widely known for her visions of Christ, which in turn gave rise to the iconography of Christ the Priest as seen in the present work. Christ is depicted in simple ecclesiastical robes, flanked by two angels kneeling in adoration, with a golden light emanating behind him with a magnificent halo populated by seraphim. His figure appears to be floating, in keeping with an apparition, and below Him is a cartouche referencing the Latin meditation Respice in Faciem Christi [Look upon the Face of your Christ].

The subject was treated by other artists, in particular from the school of Valladolid such as Valentín Díaz and Felipe Gil de Mena, whose paintings appear to look back to an earlier engraving from the 1580s given to the Flemish print maker Jerome Wierix. Although the present work shares some overall similarities with the engraving, it reveals a far greater degree of sophistication as well as significant divergences, most noticeably in the addition of the kneeling angels (absent in the print) and the figure of Christ floating rather than standing as seen in the engraving. Whilst the absence of similar small-scale works on copper by Alonso Cano make an attribution to the artist difficult to establish with any degree of certainty, Jordan compares the strongly modelled figure of Christ to the small Christ at the Column of 1631-32 at La Campana, which originally functioned as the tabernacle door from the church of Santa Maria la Blanca, and furthermore likens the handling with Cano’s Saint James the Major and Saint John the Evangelist in the Musée du Louvre. The most compelling parallel however he considered to be the diadem of cherubim surrounding Christ’s head and the same feature in Alonso Cano’s signed Immaculate Conception in the Museo Provincial de Alava, Vitoria. He dates the painting to the period directly following Cano’s arrival in Madrid from Seville, circa 1638-40. On the basis of photographs however Dr Benito Navarrete (to whom we are grateful) does not believe the present work to be by Alonso Cano but by an artist working in Valladolid in the circle of Diego Valentín Díaz.

NOTE ON PROVENANCE

The painting enjoys a highly distinguished provenance, having formed part of the two greatest collections of Spanish art outside of Spain during the 19th century. By 1838 it belonged to Louis Philippe, King of the French (1773-1850), who three years earlier engaged Baron Isidore Taylor to help assemble a vast collection of Spanish paintings for the Louvre, in the so-called Galerie Espagnole, in an attempt to legitimize the king’s links with the Bourbon dynasty and to provide French artists with a new artform to replace the prevailing neo-classical movement. The collection consisted of some 450 paintings, including no less than 81 works (including the present one) attributed to Zurbarán. Following the French Revolution of 1848, Louis-Philippe was forced to abdicate and spent the remainder of his life in exile in England. The collection was sold by the heirs of Louis-Philippe at Christie’s in London in 1854, when the Christ as Priest was acquired by Graves on behalf of the great Scottish hispanist William Stirling, later Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, 9th Baronet (1818-1878), remaining in the family at Keir until sold by his heirs at auction in London in 1990.

As a collector, Chilean architect Carlos Alberto Cruz, founder of The Apelles Collection, has wide-ranging interests that include Colonial Silver, Twentieth-Century Photography, incunabula and manuscripts, medieval liturgical objects, and contemporary Latin American art. When, in the early 1990s, his attention was captured by Golden Age Spain in all its cultural aspects, he was one of a tiny minority of collectors looking at Spanish paintings and drawings. His activity played an important role in the increasing prominence of the Spanish Golden Age, and coincided with a growing number of international exhibitions to which he lent generously. This was a new Golden Age, one of scholarly and museological interest - outside and inside of Iberia - in the visual arts of Spain. With greater subtlety and depth than ever before, Golden Age Spanish Art occupies an increasingly prominent place in the panorama of art history and collecting. Mr Cruz recognised that in an Italo-centric art historical discourse, Spanish visual arts were somehow “other” and it was their distinctive qualities - sometimes emphatic, sometimes restrained - that merited his special interest.