A young man, bust-length, traditionally identified as the bull-fighter Pepe Illo, wearing a redecilla

Details

SPANISH SCHOOL, 18TH CENTURY
A young man, bust-length, traditionally identified as the bull-fighter Pepe Illo, wearing a redecilla
oil on canvas
25 ¼ x 20 in. (64.2 x 50.9 cm.)

Provenance

George Villiers (1800-1870), 4th Earl of Clarendon, by whom purchased when Ambassador in Madrid 1833-1839, and by descent to,
Edward Villiers (1846-1914), 5th Earl of Clarendon; Christie's, 15 May 1908, lot 108, as F. J. Goya, a Portrait of Pepe Illo (to Colnaghi and Co.).
Sir George Alexander Drummond (1892-1910), Montreal; his sale, Christie's, London, 26 June 1919, lot 177, as F. Goya, a Portrait of Pepe Illo, to Gooden & Fox, presumably on behalf of the following,
William Hesketh Lever (1851-1925), 1^st Viscount Leverhulme; his deceased sale, New York, 17 February 1926, lot 117, as Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, a Portrait of Pepe Illo.
with Galerie Trottie & Cie, Paris, where acquired by the following,
with Knoedler & Co., New York, as F. Goya, a Portrait of a Boy, where acquired in 1928 by,
Mrs. Joan Whitney Payson (1903-1975), New York, and by descent to the present owner.

Literature

A. Mayer, Francisco de Goya, R. West (trans.), London, 1924, p. 159, no. 322, as Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, The Bull-fighter, Pepe Illo.
'English Paintings Exhibited for Sale: Leverhulme Collection of 296 Will be Sold at Anderson's Three Evenings this Week. Mostly of 18th Century, Goya's Pepe Illo, Seven "Old" Cromes and Four Gainsboroughs Included in Auction', The New York Times, 15 February 1926, LXXV, issue no. 24859, p. 9, as Goya, a Portrait of Pepe Illo.
'Gov. Fuller Pays $31,000 for Painting, Massachusetts Executive Buys Millais's "Caller Herring" at Leverhulme sale. $25,000 for Goya Portrait, Second Session of Auction brings $149,465 - Americans Get Most of Pictures', The New York Times, 19 February 1926, LXXV, issue no. 24863, p. 24, as Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, a Portrait of Pepe Illo.
'Art: Leverhulme Sale', Time: The Weekly News-Magazine, 8 March 1926, VII, unpaginated, as Goya, Portrait of Pepe Illo.
N. Glendinning, ‘Goya and England in the Nineteenth Century’, The Burlington Magazine, CVI, 1964, p. 11, note 27, as recorded in the Clarendon inventories as Goya, Famous Matador Pepe Illo.

Exhibited

Boston, The Copley Society, Spanish Masters, 1912, no. 73, as Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, ‘Pepe Illo’ Bull-Fighter.
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, An Exhibition of Spanish Paintings from El Greco to Goya, 17 February-1 April 1928, no. 18, as Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, Pepe Illo, dated 1739-1789.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

This portrait was once attributed to Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes and believed to represent the bullfighter José Delgado Guerra (1754-1801), better known as 'Pepe Illo'. It was exhibited as such - in the company of masterpieces by El Greco, Velázquez and Goya - at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in 1928. The sitter wears a headdress called the redecilla, sometimes known as the redecilla goyesca; though associated with bullfighters, the redecilla was worn by men and women at all levels of society in the late eighteenth century, particularly by majos and majas.

According to the 1908 Christie's catalogue, this was one of eleven Spanish pictures (four of which were attributed to Goya) acquired by George Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon, after he was appointed minister at the Court of Spain in August of 1833. He supported the liberal party during the Spanish Civil War on behalf of the British government, and remained in Spain after the war until he returned to England in 1839, when he added this painting to the many treasures in the Clarendon collection. The painting later formed part of the collection of William Hesketh Lever, an industrialist, who set up the successful firm Lever Brothers. Lever travelled for business around the globe and collected art along the way. Much of the Lever art collection is now at the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, Liverpool.

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