Saint Agnes

Details

Master of San Hermenegildo (active Seville, circa 1630-1640)
Saint Agnes
oil on canvas
55 3/8 x 41¾ in. (140.5 x 106 cm.)

Provenance

The Duque de Béjar, Madrid, 1905.
Baron H.H. Thyssen-Bornemisza, by whom purchased in 1957; Sotheby's, London, 5 July 1984, lot 260 (£77,000), as 'Francisco de Zurbarán'.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 29 May 1992, lot 318 (£145,000), as 'Francisco de Zurbarán'.

Literature

J. Cascales y Muñoz, Francisco de Zurbarán: su época, su vida y sus obras, Madrid, 1911, p. 94, as 'Zurbarán'.
A.L. Mayer, Die sevillaner Malerschule, Leipzig, 1911, p. 158, plate XXXVIII, fig. 44, as 'Zurbarán'.
A.L. Mayer, Geschichte der spanischen Malerei, Leipzig, 1913, II, p. 73, plate 38; 2nd ed., 1929, pp. 165-166, as 'Zurbarán'.
H. Kehrer, Francisco de Zurbarán, Munich, 1918, p. 146, as 'Zurbarán'.
A.L. Mayer, Historia de la pintura española, Madrid, 1942, pp. 339, 343, pl. 259; 2nd ed., 1949, pp. 179-180, as 'Zurbarán'.
M.S. Soria, 'Zurbarán. A Study of his Style', Gazette des Beaux-Arts, XXV, 1944, pp. 167-168, as 'Alonso Cano'.
B. de Pantorba, Francisco de Zurbarán, Barcelona, 1946, p. 33, plate LVI; 2nd ed., 1953, p. 33, as 'Zurbarán'.
H. Vollmer, 'Zurbarán', in Thieme-Becker, Künstler Lexikon, XXXVI, 1947, p. 602, as 'Zurbarán'.
J.A. Gaya Nuño, Zurbarán, Barcelona, 1948, p. 47, no. 184, as 'Zurbarán'.
H.E. Wethey, Alonso Cano, Madrid, 1955, p. 165, 'the style reflects Zurbarán rather than Cano'.
P. Guinard, Zurbarán et les peintres espagnoles de la vie monastique, Paris, 1960, p. 236, no. 237, as 'Zurbarán', 'Oeuvre de grande qualité. Une des saintes les plus séduisantes et expressives, brillante de couleur. Probablement originale.'
R. Heinemann, The Thyssen-Bornemisza Colletion, Castagnola-Ticino, 1969, I, pp. 366-367, no. 336; II, pl. 289.
T. Frati, L'opera completa di Zurbarán, Milan, 1973, no. 161, as 'Zurbarán, c. 1635-1640'.
J. Gálego and J. Gudiol, Zurbarán, London, 1976, pp. 113-114, no. 457, as 'Zurbarán'.
A. Rosenbaum, Old Master Paintings from the Collection of Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza, exhibition catalogue, Washington, 1979, pp. 79, 151, as 'Zurbarán'.
M. Aparicio Tovar and F.J. Pizarro Gomez, El merino en la pintura española. Siglos XIV al XVIII, Badajoz, 1998, pp. 168-170, as 'Zurbarán'.
J.M. Serrera, 'Anotaciones al mundo zurbaranesco. El Maestro de San Hermenegildo', Simposio Internacional Zurbarán y su epoca, Llerena, 1998, unpublished.
O. Delenda, Francisco de Zurbarán: 1598-1664. II: Los conjuntos y el obrador, Madrid, 2010, p. 296, no. MSH-3, illustrated on the cover, as 'Master of San Hermenegildo'.

Exhibited

Madrid, Museo Nacional de Pintura y Escultura, Obras de Francisco de Zurbarán, 1905, p. 30, no. 51.
Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Collectie Thyssen-Bornemisza, 1959-1960, no. 58, pl. 55.
Essen, Museum Folkwang, Sammlung Thyssen-Bornemisza, 1960, no. 58, pl. 55.
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts; Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art; Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Denver, Denver Art Museum; Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum; Kansas City, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art; New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Old Master Paintings from the Collection of Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza, 1979-1981, no. 57, as 'Zurbarán'.
Paris, Petit Palais, Collection Thyssen-Bornemisza, 1982, no. 58.

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Lot Essay

Long considered to be an autograph work by Zurbarán, this striking representation of the young Roman martyr, Saint Agnes, was convincingly attributed to a talented member of the master's workshop by Juan Miguel Serrera in a lecture given at a 1998 symposium in Llerena. In their recent catalogue, Odile Delinda and Almudena Ros de Barbero (loc. cit.) link the present painting to two additional works datable to between 1630 and 1640: a canvas of Saints Justa and Rufina (private collection, France) and the large Martyrdom of San Hermenegildo for the high altar of the Church of San Hermenegildo in Madrid, from which derives the artist's placeholder name. Four artists who worked with Zurbarán during this period are known from a 1636 document, which lists José Duran, Diego Muñoz, Alonso de Flores and Ignacio de Ries as workers in Zurbarán's studio. Delinda and Ros de Barbero suggest that the Master of San Hermenegildo was most likely one of the first three.

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