Old Master Paintings & Spanish Colonial Art
Lot 219:
Life-size portrait of the biblical patriarch Joshua, successor of Moses. Large oil on canvas. Born around 1620/1625 in Jerez de la Frontera, having been a relative of Catalina de Ayala Camacho, wife of the Portuguese painter Baltazar Gomes Figueira and mother of the Portuguese still life painter Josefa de Óbidos. He was one of the founders in 1660 of the Seville drawing academy, where he remained until 1671, later settling in Cádiz, attracted by the art trade with the American colonies, and establishing his residence in the house of Miguel Legot, son by the Flemish painter Pablo Legot. He was one of the best disciples of Francisco de Zurbarán, his only signed work is the Virgen de los Reyes on his altar in the cathedral of Seville, precisely dated 1662 and preserved in the headquarters of the Constitutional Court of Lima. The presence of this painting in Peru is attested since 1666, in the Augustinian Recollect convent of Nuestra Señora del Prado, and is proof of Ayala’s dedication to the art trade with America, of which there is also some other documentary testimony. From that single signed work, an important number of works of a certain quality have been attributed to him, close to the production of the Extremaduran master, and Odile Delenda came to compose a catalog of forty-two works related to the painter, of which ten could be considered safe. Among this set of attributed works is an Assumption already cited by Ceán as existing in the altar of the tabernacle of the church of San Juan de Dios in Seville, now in the church of San Roque de Algeciras, the paintings of the archangels of the Chapel of San Miguel of the Cathedral of Jaén and similar series of saints, angels and sibyls in Andalusian and Lima convents and private collections, among these an apostolate in the sacristy of the San Francisco convent and a series of founding saints of monastic orders in the convent of the Good Death, or Christ crowning Saint Joseph of the Museum of Fine Arts in Seville, currently restored to Zurbarán. In 2006, two of his canvases, of an eminently Zurbaranesque character, were added to the Museum of Fine Arts of Seville: Santa Lucía and San Roque, attributed to Ayala in view of their similarities with another series related to the painter of five saints and full-length saints. preserved in the church of Our Lady of Peace in Seville. Reference bibliography: Hernández Díaz, José, «More Sevillian paintings of Zurbaranesque influences», Boletín de Bellas Artes, 6 (1978), pp. 163-176. Kinkead, Duncan T., Painters and gilders in Seville 1650-1699. Documents, Bloomington In., AuthorHouse, 2006, ISBN 1-4259-7205-5. Lamas-Delgado, Eduardo. “Le peintre Bernabé de Ayala et autres petits maîtres entre Séville et Cadix”, Annales d’Histoire de l’art et d’archéologie. XXXVI. 2014. Pérez Sánchez, Anfonso E. Baroque painting in Spain 1600-1750. Madrid. Chair. 1992. Ceán Bermúdez, Juan Agustín, Historical Dictionary of the most illustrious teachers of Fine Arts in Spain, Madrid, 1800. Delenda, Odile, «Bernabé de Ayala (Séville, vers 1620/25 – après 1675). Un élève oublié de Francisco Zurbarán », Les Cahiers d’Histoire de l’Art, 9, 2011, pp. 24-33. Provenance: important private collection, Andalusia. Measures:
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