Claudio Coello

Possibly private collection, Madrid, circa 1760;¹

Anonymous sale, Madrid, Edmund Peel & Asociados, 31 May 1990, lot 9 (as Claudio Coello, Un Santo Dominico);

Where acquired by the Miguel Granados Collection, Spain;

With Coll & Cortés, Madrid;

From whom acquired by a private collector, Madrid;

From whom acquired by the present owner.

¹ Professor Edward J. Sullivan notes that a lost painting of Saint Augustine was recorded in the Madrid newspaper Almoneda on 17 April 1760. E.J. Sullivan, Baroque Painting in Madrid: The Contribution of Claudio Coello, with a Catalogue Raisonné of his Works, Columbia 1986, p. 196, PL42.  

Segovia, Torreón de Lozoya, Salas del Palacio, Semblantes: Colección Granados, 1 July - 7 November 2011, no. 33;

Cáceres, Casa Palacio de los Becerra, Fundación Mercedes Calles y Carlos Ballesteros, Pasión por el arte: Colección Granados, 24 March - 24 June 2012, no. 17.

Possibly E.J. Sullivan, Baroque Painting in Madrid: The Contribution of Claudio Coello, with a Catalogue Raisonné of his Works, Columbia 1986, p. 196, PL42 (as lost);  

G. Martínez Leiva and A. Rodríguez Rebollo, in Semblantes: Colección Granados, exhibition catalogue, Segovia 2011, pp. 110-113, cat. no. 33, reproduced;

G. Martínez Leiva and A. Rodríguez Rebollo, in Pasión por el arte: Colección Granados, exh. cat., Cáceres 2012, pp. 68-71, cat. no. 17, reproduced.

This dramatic painting of Saint Augustine bears many of the hallmarks of the style of Claudio Coello, one of the leading representatives of Madrid's Baroque school in the seventeenth century. The bright colors selected by the artist to fill in the sky, the cloak, and the flaming heart–one of Saint Augustine's traditional attributes, to demonstrate the intensity of his love for God–have all been applied using loose and powerful brushstrokes, commonly found across Coello's body of work. Saint Augustine's posture likewise typifies the dynamism for which Coello is known: although the artist's larger works are more commonly praised for their elaborate scenographic sense and deft combination of multiple compositional elements, even the present canvas, smaller in its dimensions, evidences Coello's discern for design.² The figure of the saint occupies the entire central space, thus endowing him with a certain degree of monumentality, which is in turn enhanced by the relative sizes of the plinth and column on the right. The advanced posture of his proper left hand, which almost reaches out of the canvas to offer the viewer the flaming heart, the impassioned way in which Saint Augustine holds his proper right arm to his chest, and the tilt of his head heavenwards, mirrored by his gaze, all further contribute to this dynamism.

The solid modelling of the saint's figure, almost sculptural in nature, and the simplicity of the background have prompted Gloria Martínez Leiva and Angel Rodríguez Rebollo to date this work to Coello's mature period, around the 1670s.³ Indeed, while Coello's style did not change substantially over the course of his career, Raquel González Escribano has charted that his figures increasingly gained solidity and his architectural backgrounds evolved from an early complexity towards more straightforward and powerful structures.⁴

Coello was born to a Portuguese family settled in Madrid. His father, Faustino Coello, a renowned bronze worker by profession, sent him to Francisco Rizi’s studio to train. Through both Rizi and his friendship with Juan Carreño de Miranda, Coello secured access to the paintings collections at Madrid’s Alcázar Palace, where he diligently copied the works of earlier masters, as well as those of his contemporaries, including Bassano, Giordano, Veronese, Titian, Rubens and Van Dyck. The influence of the latter three artists is particularly notable in the present canvas by way of Coello's quick, bravura brushstrokes and his choice of color palette, which is Titianesque in the treatment of the sky.

Coello's career hit a new stride in 1668, when he made a series of paintings for the church of San Plácido in Madrid, where his teacher, Rizi, had previously worked. Coello’s central panel, an Annunciation, revealed his lavish sense of staging and taste for dynamic, exquisitely colored and expansive compositions. From then until 1683, he undertook numerous commissions for churches around Madrid. In 1679, he began working for the royal family, participating in the decoration of triumphal arches to celebrate the arrival in Madrid of Charles II’s first wife, Marie Louise of Orléans. Four years later, in March 1683, he was appointed the King’s Painter by royal decree. In 1685, Coello began work on what must be his most famous accomplishment: the decoration of the Sacristy in El Escorial, which contains his altarpiece of the Adoration of the Miraculous Host. This monumental work contains fifty portraits, including that of the king and his principal courtiers. Coello continued to work on royal projects until his final years, when Luca Giordano’s arrival in Madrid to take over the painting of the El Escorial signaled his displacement.

² Martínez Leiva and Rodríguez Rebollo, in Cáceres 2012, p. 68, cat. no. 17.

³ Martínez Leiva and Rodríguez Rebollo, in Cáceres 2012, p. 68, cat. no. 17.

⁴ R. González Escribano, in Enciclopedia del Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid 2006, vol. III, pp. 741-743.