Spanish school of the second third of the XVII... Lot n° 37

Spanish school of the second third of the XVII century. "Santo Domingo in Soriano". Oil on canvas. Relined. Spanish frame ca. 1850. Presents faults. Precise restoration, both in the canvas and in the frame. Measurements: 210 x 165 cm; 230 x 184 cm (frame). The present work is about the miracle of Saint Dominic in the Dominican convent of Soriano Calabro in Italy. The scene takes place in an interior with the Virgin holding the portrait of the saint, while Saint Catherine (identified with the distaff, the sword and the palm of martyrdom) rises imposingly next to her. The Magdalena and a visionary religious, who appears kneeling, close the scene on the left side. The work is inspired by the homonymous canvas by Fray Juan Bautista Maíno, today kept in the Prado Museum, dated around 1629. According to the art gallery itself, "The fame of this representation associated with the name of Maíno spread from a painting, now lost, placed in a chapel of the convent of Santo Tomás in Madrid in May 1629. The Dominicans spread the legend of Soriano presenting as miraculous not only the original image but also its copies. These miraculous powers associated with the cult of Saint Dominic in Soriano explain the immediate diffusion in copies and variants of Maíno's composition (Text extracted from Carlos Varona, M. C. de, in: Juan Bautista Maíno: 1581-1649, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2009, pp. 172-176)."