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Lot Essay
Listed by Pérez Sánchez and Angulo Iñiguez, loc. cit., as by Matias Ximeno, Pérez Sánchez has since (oral communication) suggested an attribution to the Castilian artist, Vicencio Carducho. The facial type and treatment of the hair of the Virgin in this picture can be compared to those in, for example, Carducho's Adoration of the Kings of 1619 in the Parish Church of Algate or in his Annunciation of 1624 in the Descalzas Reales, Madrid. Certainly the quality of the present picture would seem to be higher than that of other pictures of the same subject by Ximeno (see, for example, Angulo Iñiguez and Pérez Sánchez, op.cit., pls. 396-7.).
Born in Florence, Vicente (Vicencio) was the brother of the artist Bartolomé Carducho. He became a prolific painter for both the Church and the Court in Castile, adapting a late-sixteenth-century Italianate style, introduced into Spain in the 1580s, to Spanish themes and settings. His most important religious commission was a cycle of fifty-six paintings for the Carthusian Monastery of El Paular, near Segovia (dispersed in 1836), that he was commissioned to paint in 1626. From 1626, Carducho was Pintor del Rey. He painted three pictures of the series commissioned by King Philip IV to commemorate historic battles won by Spanish arms since the King's ascent to the throne in 1621 (Madrid, Prado). As well as painting, Carducho was also to write the influential Diálogos de la Pintura, an erudite defence of painting as a noble pursuit and of the artist as a learned humanist.
Born in Florence, Vicente (Vicencio) was the brother of the artist Bartolomé Carducho. He became a prolific painter for both the Church and the Court in Castile, adapting a late-sixteenth-century Italianate style, introduced into Spain in the 1580s, to Spanish themes and settings. His most important religious commission was a cycle of fifty-six paintings for the Carthusian Monastery of El Paular, near Segovia (dispersed in 1836), that he was commissioned to paint in 1626. From 1626, Carducho was Pintor del Rey. He painted three pictures of the series commissioned by King Philip IV to commemorate historic battles won by Spanish arms since the King's ascent to the throne in 1621 (Madrid, Prado). As well as painting, Carducho was also to write the influential Diálogos de la Pintura, an erudite defence of painting as a noble pursuit and of the artist as a learned humanist.