TREASURES FROM MEDIEVAL TO BAROQUE ART
Lot 417:
Oil on panel, with an important tabernacle-type period frame, measurements: 102 x 76 cm (Toledo, h. 1545-Madrid, 1599). Spanish painter. There are few known biographical data on this important artist. His work must have been carried out fundamentally in Toledo, although he also worked at court, being esteemed by Felipe II, who sent him in 1593 to the Sherif of Morocco, surely as a portraitist of the North African ruler. Prado also painted in El Escorial, where on different occasions he had to appraise some works, thus putting himself in contact with the latest novelties brought from Italy by transalpine painters who came to work on the decoration of the monastery. All this would be enough to recognize in the few paintings and drawings of his preserved his deep knowledge of Romanist classicism, but a possible trip to Italy cannot be ruled out, as he seems singularly influenced by Michelangelo, both in the Descent preserved in the cathedral of Valencia and in the Uffizi drawing. The image that Prado created of him on this canvas served for later representations of the priest and demonstrates the painter’s remarkable skills as a portraitist. The painting was in the Royal Palace in 1818, from where it went to the Prado Museum.
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