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Lot Essay
When seen in the most impressive gathering of seventeenth-century Spanish painting outside of Spain in the collection of Marshal Soult, Dr. G.F. Waagen singled out the present painting by Murillo as 'the finest [single-figure picture] I know of the master':
The intense longing for [Saint Augustine's] Lord, expressed in the fine features and beautiful eyes and the speaking gestures of the admirable hands, render the following inscription almost superfluous--'Inquietum est cormeum donec perveniat ad te' [My heart is restless until it comes to you]. As respects pictures of single figures, this is the finest I know of the master; for the grandly expressed moral intention is here combined with unusual decision of forms, with a light and transparent golden coloring in the flesh-tones, with a fine arrangement of harmoniously and powerfully colored drapery, which is lined with a beautiful cherry brown, and, finally, with a solid and sustained execution in a rich body. The general dark tint of the background, with only a curtain, sets off the striking effect of the figure. I have already seen and admired this chef-d'oeuvre in the collection of Marshal Soult at Paris.
The Marshal Jean de Dieu Soult collection included masterpieces by Murillo and Francisco de Zurbarán and provided many French artists with their first important contact with Spanish painting. Among them was the Romantic painter par excellence, Eugène Delacroix, who, on 30 November 1853, emphasized the quality of the Murillos above the work of any other painter in the renowned group: 'I was talking to [Paul Delaroche] one day about Marshal Soult's wonderful Murillos, and he was willing to allow me to marvel at them'.
Marshal Soult amassed his impressive collection while serving as Napoleon's commander of the French army of the South during the Peninsular War (1808-14). Seville, renowned for its artistic treasures, was of particular interest for the French; and on 1 February 1810 Soult entered the city and established his residence at the archbishop's palace (fig. 1), a sumptuous Baroque building housing paintings by Valdés Leal and Francisco da Herrera the Elder as well as Murillo's Virgin and Child (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool). Subsequent military victories contributed to Soult's acquisition of paintings from local religious institutions and from the city's depository in the Alcázar. Soult returned to Paris in 1812 with approximately 180 Spanish paintings, including Murillo's iconic Immaculate Conception (Prado, Madrid). Apart from a magnanimous donation of works by Murillo and Zurbarán to the Louvre (then Musée Napoléon) in 1813, Soult housed his pictures in his Paris town house on the rue de l'Université, which became an unofficial academy of Spanish painting. It was immediately the most important private collection of Spanish paintings outside Spain. (The posthumous sale of the Soult collection in 1852 listed seventy-eight paintings from the Seville school alone). For further reading on Marshal Soult's collection of Spanish paintings, see I.C. Rivero, 'Seville's Artistic Heritage during the French Occupation', in Manet/Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting, New York, 2003, pp. 93-113.
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was the leading exponent of the seventeenth-century Sevillan school, which was known for its seamless blend of realism and sentimental beauty in painting. Murillo was born and trained in Seville, where he learned the rudiments of his art from Juan del Castillo, a vital contact for the city's leading artists, including Alonso Cano. In 1645 Murillo received his first important religious commission, scenes illustrating the miracles of Franciscan saints for the convent of San Francisco in Seville. At the time he was influenced by the tenebrism associated with Francisco de Zurbarán. In 1658, at the height of his career, Murillo travelled to the royal court at Madrid, where he befriended Diego Velázquez. As court painter to Philip IV, Velázquez was the key to the city's most important collections, which included works by Titian and Rubens. By 1660 Murillo had successfully appropriated both the compositional grandeur of cinquecento Venetian painting and the technical brilliance of Rubens. The artist's last two decades represent his period of greatest activity, during which time his tonal range was simplified and his use of colors limited primarily to shades of gray and brown. Between 1666 and 1670 Murillo painted his monumental Saint Augustine contemplating the Virgin and the Crucifixion (Prado, Madrid; fig. 2) for the altar of the church of San Agustín in Seville. The present version, dated 1665-75 by Angulo Iñiguez, is a reverse of that composition and concentrates on the emotional immediacy of Augustine's vision.
Saint Augustine (354-430) served many roles throughout his life, including Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and one of the four Latin Fathers of the Catholic Church (along with Saints Ambrose, Gregory and Jerome). In the visual arts, he is identified by the dress, mitre and crozier of a bishop and by a short, dark beard. However, Augustine's principal attribute is a flaming heart, a symbol of his religious fervor and one particularly appropriate for Counter-Reformation Spain. For further reading on the legend of Saint Augustine, see J. and P. Courcelle, Iconographie de Saint Augustin, Paris, 1972.
In the present work Murillo faithfully depicts the Christian saint surrounded by the appropriate attributes, viz. the bishop's crozier and mitre on the right and the flaming heart surrounded by the following inscription on the upper left: 'INQUIETUM EST COR MEUM DONEC PERVENIAT AD TE', yet under his pluvial Murillo's Augustine wears the black cowl of the Augustinian hermits, who believed that this was the saint's own dress as opposed to the white robe sanctioned by the Augustinian Canons. Murillo appropriates the pose of his figure from Anthony van Dyck's Ecstasy of Saint Augustine (c. 1628; Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten; fig. 3), a composition well known in Seville through numerous engravings.
Murillo's Saint Augustine in Ecstasy was last sold at auction at Christie's, London, in 1933, along with Murillo's iconic Christ healing the Paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda (National Gallery, London; fig. 4), both from the estate of George Pretyman of Orwell Park, Ipswich.
The intense longing for [Saint Augustine's] Lord, expressed in the fine features and beautiful eyes and the speaking gestures of the admirable hands, render the following inscription almost superfluous--'Inquietum est cormeum donec perveniat ad te' [My heart is restless until it comes to you]. As respects pictures of single figures, this is the finest I know of the master; for the grandly expressed moral intention is here combined with unusual decision of forms, with a light and transparent golden coloring in the flesh-tones, with a fine arrangement of harmoniously and powerfully colored drapery, which is lined with a beautiful cherry brown, and, finally, with a solid and sustained execution in a rich body. The general dark tint of the background, with only a curtain, sets off the striking effect of the figure. I have already seen and admired this chef-d'oeuvre in the collection of Marshal Soult at Paris.
The Marshal Jean de Dieu Soult collection included masterpieces by Murillo and Francisco de Zurbarán and provided many French artists with their first important contact with Spanish painting. Among them was the Romantic painter par excellence, Eugène Delacroix, who, on 30 November 1853, emphasized the quality of the Murillos above the work of any other painter in the renowned group: 'I was talking to [Paul Delaroche] one day about Marshal Soult's wonderful Murillos, and he was willing to allow me to marvel at them'.
Marshal Soult amassed his impressive collection while serving as Napoleon's commander of the French army of the South during the Peninsular War (1808-14). Seville, renowned for its artistic treasures, was of particular interest for the French; and on 1 February 1810 Soult entered the city and established his residence at the archbishop's palace (fig. 1), a sumptuous Baroque building housing paintings by Valdés Leal and Francisco da Herrera the Elder as well as Murillo's Virgin and Child (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool). Subsequent military victories contributed to Soult's acquisition of paintings from local religious institutions and from the city's depository in the Alcázar. Soult returned to Paris in 1812 with approximately 180 Spanish paintings, including Murillo's iconic Immaculate Conception (Prado, Madrid). Apart from a magnanimous donation of works by Murillo and Zurbarán to the Louvre (then Musée Napoléon) in 1813, Soult housed his pictures in his Paris town house on the rue de l'Université, which became an unofficial academy of Spanish painting. It was immediately the most important private collection of Spanish paintings outside Spain. (The posthumous sale of the Soult collection in 1852 listed seventy-eight paintings from the Seville school alone). For further reading on Marshal Soult's collection of Spanish paintings, see I.C. Rivero, 'Seville's Artistic Heritage during the French Occupation', in Manet/Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting, New York, 2003, pp. 93-113.
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was the leading exponent of the seventeenth-century Sevillan school, which was known for its seamless blend of realism and sentimental beauty in painting. Murillo was born and trained in Seville, where he learned the rudiments of his art from Juan del Castillo, a vital contact for the city's leading artists, including Alonso Cano. In 1645 Murillo received his first important religious commission, scenes illustrating the miracles of Franciscan saints for the convent of San Francisco in Seville. At the time he was influenced by the tenebrism associated with Francisco de Zurbarán. In 1658, at the height of his career, Murillo travelled to the royal court at Madrid, where he befriended Diego Velázquez. As court painter to Philip IV, Velázquez was the key to the city's most important collections, which included works by Titian and Rubens. By 1660 Murillo had successfully appropriated both the compositional grandeur of cinquecento Venetian painting and the technical brilliance of Rubens. The artist's last two decades represent his period of greatest activity, during which time his tonal range was simplified and his use of colors limited primarily to shades of gray and brown. Between 1666 and 1670 Murillo painted his monumental Saint Augustine contemplating the Virgin and the Crucifixion (Prado, Madrid; fig. 2) for the altar of the church of San Agustín in Seville. The present version, dated 1665-75 by Angulo Iñiguez, is a reverse of that composition and concentrates on the emotional immediacy of Augustine's vision.
Saint Augustine (354-430) served many roles throughout his life, including Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and one of the four Latin Fathers of the Catholic Church (along with Saints Ambrose, Gregory and Jerome). In the visual arts, he is identified by the dress, mitre and crozier of a bishop and by a short, dark beard. However, Augustine's principal attribute is a flaming heart, a symbol of his religious fervor and one particularly appropriate for Counter-Reformation Spain. For further reading on the legend of Saint Augustine, see J. and P. Courcelle, Iconographie de Saint Augustin, Paris, 1972.
In the present work Murillo faithfully depicts the Christian saint surrounded by the appropriate attributes, viz. the bishop's crozier and mitre on the right and the flaming heart surrounded by the following inscription on the upper left: 'INQUIETUM EST COR MEUM DONEC PERVENIAT AD TE', yet under his pluvial Murillo's Augustine wears the black cowl of the Augustinian hermits, who believed that this was the saint's own dress as opposed to the white robe sanctioned by the Augustinian Canons. Murillo appropriates the pose of his figure from Anthony van Dyck's Ecstasy of Saint Augustine (c. 1628; Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten; fig. 3), a composition well known in Seville through numerous engravings.
Murillo's Saint Augustine in Ecstasy was last sold at auction at Christie's, London, in 1933, along with Murillo's iconic Christ healing the Paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda (National Gallery, London; fig. 4), both from the estate of George Pretyman of Orwell Park, Ipswich.