Lot Essay
This freely-executed canvas is a preliminary sketch for the large altarpiece of the same subject, painted by Goya for the church of San Pedro, Urrea de Gaén (Teruel), in 1782-3, that was destroyed in 1936 (fig. 1).
In July 1773 Goya had married the artist Ramón Bayeu's sister, Josefa, in Madrid, but had continued to work in Saragossa. Late in 1774, however, he was summoned to the capital to design and paint, under the the direction of Francisco Bayeu, and alongside Ramón, large cartoons from which tapestries destined for the royal palaces could be made - a project that was to continue until 1792. Elected to the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in 1780, Goya's next major commission was to paint the cupola frescoes of the Cathedral of Nuestra Señora del Pilar in Saragossa. His initial sketches for the pendentive designs displeased the Cathedral authorities, and he was forced to submit revisions to Francisco Bayeu. He was to triumph over the latter and his other contemporaries, however, when commissioned to execute an altarpiece depicting Saint Bernardino preaching before Alfonso V of Aragon (Madrid, San Francisco el Grande).
No documents about the commission that the present sketch relates to are known, although Goya's correspondence records a payment in 1783 of 3000 reales made by the Duke of Híjar, who had paid for the building of the church, which had been completed in 1782.
The altarpiece and sketch depict how when the Apostle James was praying one night with his disciples by the River Ebro, near the city of Saragossa, the Virgin, who was then still alive, appeared to him surrounded by choirs of angels, on a marble column (seen in the sketch being held by an angel on the right): she left him an image of herself (shown here on the left) and there the apostle built a chapel.
Goya had already painted the subject of The Virgin of the Pillar some ten years before (Museo de Zaragoza, Saragossa). This showed the image of the Virgin and Child on top of a pillar surrounded by angels and clouds. For the San Pedro altarpiece, Goya designed a far more sophisticated composition. He reversed the lay-out of this sketch and eliminated the figure of the disciple running forward with arms outspread - a gesture often used by the artist to express wonder or dismay. This enabled him to close up the two main protagonists and concentrate on the main subject-matter.
As pointed out in the catalogue of the exhibition Goya Truth and Fantasy (curated by J. Wilson-Bareau and M. Mena Marques) a red chalk drawing on p. 14 (recto) of Goya's Italian Notebook, shows God the Father appearing to a figure almost identical to that of Saint James in the present sketch (see fig. 2). If this were Abraham, then God's charge to him to build an altar on the land given to him and his descendants would find a parallel in the Virgin's encouragement to Saint James to establish the Christian church in Spain and build a sanctuary to enshrine her image. A further drawing of the present composition, (white chalk on grey paper, 26 x 21 cm.) in the opposite sense, exists in the Prado.
While still showing the influence of Bayeu, this preliminary sketch, executed in a rich yet elegant palette, and with its spontaneously applied white highlights, conveys all the liveliness and excitement of the subject in a way that at this time in Spain only Goya knew how.
One of the previous owners of this picture was Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch (1806-1880) (see Morales y Marín, loc. cit.). Son of a German carpenter, he was educated for the priesthood, but having left school, learned shorthand and joined the staff of the Gaceta newspaper. After making translations from the work of Molière, Voltaire and Dumas, he went on to rewrite old Spanish plays, and in 1837 produced his first original play Los Amantes de Teruel. The critical success that this met with was repeated with La Jura en Santa Gadea, written in 1845.
In July 1773 Goya had married the artist Ramón Bayeu's sister, Josefa, in Madrid, but had continued to work in Saragossa. Late in 1774, however, he was summoned to the capital to design and paint, under the the direction of Francisco Bayeu, and alongside Ramón, large cartoons from which tapestries destined for the royal palaces could be made - a project that was to continue until 1792. Elected to the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in 1780, Goya's next major commission was to paint the cupola frescoes of the Cathedral of Nuestra Señora del Pilar in Saragossa. His initial sketches for the pendentive designs displeased the Cathedral authorities, and he was forced to submit revisions to Francisco Bayeu. He was to triumph over the latter and his other contemporaries, however, when commissioned to execute an altarpiece depicting Saint Bernardino preaching before Alfonso V of Aragon (Madrid, San Francisco el Grande).
No documents about the commission that the present sketch relates to are known, although Goya's correspondence records a payment in 1783 of 3000 reales made by the Duke of Híjar, who had paid for the building of the church, which had been completed in 1782.
The altarpiece and sketch depict how when the Apostle James was praying one night with his disciples by the River Ebro, near the city of Saragossa, the Virgin, who was then still alive, appeared to him surrounded by choirs of angels, on a marble column (seen in the sketch being held by an angel on the right): she left him an image of herself (shown here on the left) and there the apostle built a chapel.
Goya had already painted the subject of The Virgin of the Pillar some ten years before (Museo de Zaragoza, Saragossa). This showed the image of the Virgin and Child on top of a pillar surrounded by angels and clouds. For the San Pedro altarpiece, Goya designed a far more sophisticated composition. He reversed the lay-out of this sketch and eliminated the figure of the disciple running forward with arms outspread - a gesture often used by the artist to express wonder or dismay. This enabled him to close up the two main protagonists and concentrate on the main subject-matter.
As pointed out in the catalogue of the exhibition Goya Truth and Fantasy (curated by J. Wilson-Bareau and M. Mena Marques) a red chalk drawing on p. 14 (recto) of Goya's Italian Notebook, shows God the Father appearing to a figure almost identical to that of Saint James in the present sketch (see fig. 2). If this were Abraham, then God's charge to him to build an altar on the land given to him and his descendants would find a parallel in the Virgin's encouragement to Saint James to establish the Christian church in Spain and build a sanctuary to enshrine her image. A further drawing of the present composition, (white chalk on grey paper, 26 x 21 cm.) in the opposite sense, exists in the Prado.
While still showing the influence of Bayeu, this preliminary sketch, executed in a rich yet elegant palette, and with its spontaneously applied white highlights, conveys all the liveliness and excitement of the subject in a way that at this time in Spain only Goya knew how.
One of the previous owners of this picture was Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch (1806-1880) (see Morales y Marín, loc. cit.). Son of a German carpenter, he was educated for the priesthood, but having left school, learned shorthand and joined the staff of the Gaceta newspaper. After making translations from the work of Molière, Voltaire and Dumas, he went on to rewrite old Spanish plays, and in 1837 produced his first original play Los Amantes de Teruel. The critical success that this met with was repeated with La Jura en Santa Gadea, written in 1845.