Lot 52
  • 52

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo and Studio

Estimate
80,000 - 120,000 USD
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Description

  • Bartolom� Esteban Murillo and Studio
  • Portrait of a Gentleman, presumably a member of the Ostigliani family
  • charged with the coat-of-arms of the Ostigliani family, Treviso, dated and inscribed upper left:  Año 1677. ETAT.S.34
  • oil on canvas

Provenance

With Charles Sedelmeyer, Paris, by 1894;
William T. Donnat, Paris;
With Knoedler, Paris;
From whom purchased by the Counts Contini-Bonacossi, Florence, by 1930;
With Robert Holden, London;
New York, Christie's, January 26, 2005, lot 312 (unsold).

Exhibited

Paris, Charles Sedelmeyer Gallery, 1894, no. 66;
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, on loan, 1906-1908;
Paris, René Gimpel Gallery, no. 72;
Toronto, Art Gallery, 1929;
Rome, Galleria nazionale d'arte moderne a Valle Giulia, Antichi pittori spagnoli della collezione Contini Bonacossi, May-June, 1930, no. 48 (as by Murillo). 

Literature

Paris, Sedelmeyer Gallery, Catalogue of the First Series of 100 Paintings of Old Masters, catalogue of the exhibition, Paris 1894, pp. 78-79, no. 66, reproduced (as by Murillo);
R. Longhi and A.L. Mayer, The Old Spanish Masters from the Contini Bonacossi Collection, Rome 1930, p. 31, reproduced fig. 41 (as by Murillo);
A.L. Mayer, "Zur Austellung der Spanischen Gemälde des Grafen Contini in Rome," in Pantheon, 1930, p.204, (as by Murillo);
D. Angulo Iñiguez, Murillo, Madrid 1981, vol. II, p. 583, no. 2.857 (as not by Murillo);
E. Valdivieso, Pintura Barroca Sevillana, Seville 2003 pp. 75 and 76, reproduced p. 75 (as by Murillo and Studio);
G. Martínez del Valle, La imagen del poder. El retrato sevillano del siglo XVII, Seville 2010, p. 215;
E. Valdivieso, Murillo, Catálogo Razonado de Pinturas, Madrid 2010, p. 571, cat. no. 423, reproduced p. 570 (as by Murillo and studio).

Condition

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 imposing portrait has been recently restored and should be hung as is. The canvas has been lined using glue as an adhesive. The original canvas is made of two sections of canvas joined horizontally through the middle. This join runs through the knuckles of the left hand. Beneath the fringe on the red curtain on the right side there are a few restorations and two thin lines that begin at the edges, which may be a scratch or a thin cut. Apart from these restorations there are hardly any that are visible under ultraviolet light. The painting should be hung as is.
"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."

Catalogue Note

In his recent monograph on Murillo, Enrique Valdivieso reaffirms that this striking portrait was executed by the artist with some help from his studio.In 1981 the work was doubted by Angulo Iñiguez , who saw photographs of the picture before cleaning, but Valdevieso, in a written note published in the 2005 auction catalogue (see Provenance), confirms that the "Retrato de un Caballero is indeed a work of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, with some studio assistance, painted in 1677" and also notes that "the intervention of some of the disciples and apprentices ... is a circumstance typical of all Sevillian artists of the seventeenth century."2

The Portrait of a Gentleman is one of a group of full-length male portraits that Murillo executed between 1655 and 1680.  They are all of about the same size and are similar in composition:  a standing male figure set in either a plain interior or on a terrace or parapet with a partial view of sky and trees.  Here, however, Murillo subtlety enlivens the austerity of the setting, adding checkered floor tiles and a the sumptuous red curtain tied up around a pillar, using a prevailing brownish tan background to set off the stark black and white of the subject's clothing.

1.  See Literature, Valdevieso 2010 and also Valdevieso 2003. 
2.  See Literature, D. Angulo Iñiguez, 1981.  For Valdivieso's note see sale catalogue, Christie's, New York, Important Old Master Paintings, 26 January 2005, p. 146, lot 312.