ALONSO CANO Lot n° 41

ALONSO CANO Granada 1601 - 1667 Jesus tied to the column. 1620-1624 Oil on canvas Measurements 165 x 111 cm Origin: - Private collection. We are faced with an unpublished work by a young Alonso Cano who must have painted shortly after leaving the workshop of his teacher Francisco Pacheco in 1616. The painting also demonstrates his contact with Juan del Castillo, whom he would soon surpass and, above all, the influence of the young Velázquez, who from 1617 began to stand out in Seville over the rest of the painters. The technical studies carried out on the painting during its restoration in 2007 by Rocío Viguera and Sierra Muñoz provide significant data for its study. The canvas on which it was made is the type called "mantelillo" or "damasked" fabrics due to the drawing formed by the weft. It is a single piece of cloth that was used from the end of the 16th century and the following century, in commissions of certain relevance. Velázquez himself used it in some of his first Sevillian paintings such as the Imposition of the Chasuble to San Ildefonso. At an uncertain but very early date the painting was also re-covered with a single piece of table cloth. It also presents a very old rectangular intervention in the lower left area. The study of pigments reveals that the preparation is the usual one in 16th century Sevillian painting, known as "red earth." In one of the x-rays you can see a halo made with white lead, a resource that was very common among Sevillian painters at the beginning of the 16th century. An example is the Flagellation of Juan del Castillo from the Museum of Fine Arts in Seville - a work that until recently was attributed to Pacheco - or in early paintings by Velázquez such as the Immaculate Conception of the Focus Foundation (1617) or the Virgin Girl (1617 -1618) appeared recently in Madrid commerce. A first glance allows us to rule out Francisco Pacheco or Juan del Castillo, although he shares important connections with the latter. The figure of Christ is related to the one that appears in the Negation of Saint Peter in the Museum of Fine Arts of Seville (around 1635). This has in turn been linked to the small Christ on the column (38 x 18 cm) of the door of the tabernacle of the main altarpiece of the parish of Santa María la Blanca de La Campana (Seville), painted by Alonso Cano around 1631. Although Castillo's mastery over Cano has traditionally been assumed, Serrera has already shown that in this case it is more feasible to think just the opposite from a certain moment onwards. The chronology of both paintings also confirms this proposal, since the small panel of La Campana de Cano predates Castillo's canvas. Despite being a very early painting, the treatment of the purity cloth and the tunic on the ground tells us of an artist close to the young Velázquez, and even the way of painting them is very reminiscent of those that appear in Saint John the Evangelist in Patmos by Velázquez from the National Gallery, London (ca. 1618). Also in Saint John the Baptist in the desert of the Art Institute of Chicago (around 1625), a work recently attributed to Cano. Taking all of the above into account, we believe that the painting should be attributed to Alonso Cano, being one of the first he was able to create. A clear antecedent of our work is Christ tied to the column by Pedro de Campaña, painted in 1547 for the sacramental chapel of the Sevillian church of Santa Catalina. The archaism of the composition or the proximity to the Flemish painter's model, especially in the way of representing the purity cloth, seem to demonstrate this. The way of painting the tunic folded on the ground is very close, as we have already pointed out, to Saint John the Evangelist in Patmos by Velázquez in the National Gallery in London, made around 1618. We are therefore faced with the evidence, so many times pointed out by specialists, about the influence of the young Velázquez on his friend and companion, since he had begun to work for others after passing the master's exam on March 14, 1617. Attached a complete study on the work carried out by the researcher Ángel Rodríguez Rebollo.