Noteable Sales Achieved
Alonso Cano
1601 Seville – 1667 Seville
St Catherine
Canvas:
32 1/2 x 24 1/2 in
Provenance:
Maréchal-Général Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult, Duke of Dalmatia, circa 1810.
His sale, Paris, 19-22 May, 1852, lot 40.
Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, 9th Bt (1818-1878) at Pollok House, Glasgow, Scotland by descent to: -
Archibald Stirling of Keir House, Stirling, Scotland.
Emil Buhrle, Zurich and by descent.
Exhibited:
Manchester, Art Treasures of the United Kingdom, 1857,
“[Zurbarán] No. 808, St Catherine, William Stirling Esq. On canvas. From the Soult collection. No. 40 of the Sale Catalogue”.
‘Alonso Cano’, La Modernidad del Siglo de Oro Espanol, Sala de Exposiones de la Fundacion Santander Central Hispano, Serrano 92, Madrid p. 34 & 158, 1 Abril – 26 Mayo 2002.
Literature:
Sir John Gray, Notes on Art Treasures of Keir, 1887, “The Beech Room contains two interesting examples of Zurbaran-a crowned Madonna-Regina Angelorum……formerly in the collection of the Louvre, bequeathed to Loius Phillipe by F.H. Standish; and a very dignified half-length of St Catherine, from the Soult collection”. pp 49-50.
John Hungerford Pollen, Inventory of the Pictures at Keir, 1888, No. 46 “46. St Catherine V.M. Fra de Zurbaran, 1598-1662, 32 x 24, £60”.
Keir Paintings List of 1888, which splits the collection between Sir William’s two sons. It appears No 46 of the paintings from his London House, marked ‘A’ indicating going to Archibald Stirling at Keir House.
Sir William Stirling Maxwell, Annals of the Artists of Spain, posthumous addition, 1891, Vol. III, p.925, note 2.
R. Langton Douglas, Keir Catalogue, pre 1914, No. 99, “St Catherine, Virgin and Martyr. The Saint is represented in half figure, the size of life, with a sword in her left hand and palm in her right”.
J. Gallego and J. Gudiol, Zurbarán, 1976, p. 114, No. 456 as executed between 1641 – 1658.
Odile Delenda, ‘Las Santas de Alonso Cano en el Colección Soult’, Goya, Revista de Arte, Numero 286, p.4, Enero-Febrero 2002, Publicatión Bimestral de la Fundación Lazaro Galdiano, Madrid.
General Bibl:
Memoire de Marechal Soult, publies par son fils, Paris, 1854, 3 Vols.
David Chandler, Napoleons Marshals, 1987, Wiedenfeld & Nicholson, pp 456 – 477.
Provenance
France has dignified her most distinguished soldiers with the proud title of Marshal since the reign of King Henri I. The eleven years of the First Empire saw France continually at war and throughout the course of his command Napoleon appointed 26 Marshals amongst whom Soult was one of the toughest and most successful.
Before appointing a general Napoleon was known to ask “Est-il heureux?”. Soult was certainly lucky, as well as brave, and despite faults of inconsistency he was brilliant, being described by Paddy Griffith as “ the first manoeuverer in Europe” and David Chandler as “a superb tactician on the battlefield”.
Soult, who became Duke of Dalmatia whilst 2nd in command under King Joseph Bonaparte during the Spanish campaign, ended up Minister of War in 1830 and even Marechal-General de France in 1847 before his death in 1851. He rose up through the ranks and he combined the manners and leadership qualities of a non-commissioned officer with the intellectual qualities of a general. A professional soldier from the age of 16 he saw action all over Europe as he steadily rose up through the ranks.
After commanding No 2 Corps at Corunna and Oporto in 1808 and 1809 Napoleon made Soult “major-general” to his brother, Joseph, the new King of Spain. Soult lived in enormous style in a palace in Seville and it was during this time that both he and Joseph Bonaparte plundered some of the finest art works in Spain. David Chandler has estimated that Soult took artworks to the value of 1.5 million francs, then an enormous sum. He was not above holding a whole town to ransom to make them reveal where they had hidden their artworks. He had a particular liking for Cano and Zurbaran’s work and obtained paintings such as Cano’s St Ines (formerly Berlin and destroyed in World War II) and St Catherine, and Zurbaran’s St Apollonia and the two masterpieces now in the Louvre, The exposing of the Body of St Bonaventure and St Bonaventure disputing at the Council of Lyons with the envoys of the Emperor Palaeologus.
Unlike Joseph Bonaparte and probably due to his excellent administrative skills, Soult managed to get his collection back to France. Indeed, Napoleon said, “I should have made a great example and had Soult shot; he was the greatest pillager of then all” and “Both (Soult and Talleyrand) put money before everything else; they wanted a royal suite and money, always money”.
Joseph Bonaparte’s collection was famously captured in a baggage train by the Duke of Wellington after the battle of Victoria and now sits in Apsley House, London (the former London home of the Duke and now a museum). This defeat, on June 21st, 1813, put an end to French rule in Spain. Joseph had to flee his carriage and Wellington found in it at least 165 paintings, the canvasses cut from their stretchers, including works by Corregio, Velasquez and Rubens.
Under Louis-Phillipe, negotiations were started for the French State to buy Soult’s collection ‘en bloc’. These discussions were fractious and eventually broke down. However, the Louvre did manage to buy some of the most important paintings privately in 1858 and 1867, St Basil by Herrera, The Angels’ Kitchen and The Birth of the Virgin by Murillo, the two great scenes from the life of St Bonaventure, and the small St Appolonia by Zurbaran. It was whilst St Catherine was in the Soult collection that Delacroix made his sensitive copy of the painting which is now in the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Beziers.
The bulk of the collection was sold in 1852 in Paris, including Cano’s St Catherine as Lot No. 40. At this sale the Louvre managed to buy the famous Immaculate Conception by Murillo for the fantastic sum of 586,000 francs. In 1940 this painting went to the Prado as part of an exchange. St Catherine was described in the catalogue “Zurbaran (Francois). Ne en Estramadure, en 1593, mort en 1662. Sainte Catherine. Elle est representee a mi-corps, tenant un glaire d’une main et une palme de l’autre. Sa coiffure et son costume sont ajustes avec autant de gout que d’elegances. Cette figure est d’une belle tournure et d’une noble expression”. Although Delacroix knew the St Catherine was by Cano it was during the Soult sale that the painting became misattributed to Zurbaran and the attribution stayed as Zurbaran until recent scholarship correctly moved it back to Cano.
St Catherine was acquired from the Soult collection by the pioneer collector of Spanish Art, Sir William Stirling-Maxwell of Pollok House, Glasgow. According to the 19th century Maxwell inventories, the painting also spent time in Sir William’s London house before passing to his son, Sir Archibald Stirling at Keir House in Scotland. In Sir John Gray’s Treasures at Keir of 1887 he mentions St Catherine as hanging in the Beech Room along with Zurbaran’s Regina Angelorum and El Greco’s Lady in a fur wrap, which is now at Pollok House.
St Catherine remained at Keir House until the 1950’s when sold to the late Swiss collector, Emil Buhrle of Zurich. This collection remains amongst the most important collections of Impressionists and Old Masters in Europe.
St Catherine
Alonso Cano was a sculptor, architect, draughtsman and painter and has often been called the Spanish ‘Michelangelo’ because of the diversity of his talents. He was born and died in Grenada but he also worked in Madrid and Seville. His movements were partly dictated by his tempestuous character (like Michelangelo) and more than once he had to flee or was expelled from a city (once for the suspected murder of his wife). Along with Velasquez, Murillo and Zurbaran his body of work and in particular his beautiful paintings remain one of the outstanding artistic achievements of 17th century Spain.
Cano and Velasquez both studied together in Seville with Pacheco. Cano stayed in Seville from 1614 – 1638 after which he moved to Madrid to become painter to the Count-Duke Olivares. He was also employed by Philip IV to restore paintings in the Royal Collection which is where a chance to study the 16th century Venetian masters softened his technique. From 1652 he mainly worked in Grenada where he designed the façade of the Cathedral which remains one of the most original pieces of Spanish Baroque architecture. He was ordained as a priest in 1658 and spent his last years mainly creating sculptures and painting pictures for the Cathedral.
St Catherine is depicted half-length facing the viewer holding a sword in one hand and a palm frond in the other. She has a sober solemnity and is depicted with Cano’s distinctive colour combination of gold, red and green. Her compelling physical presence is heightened by her stillness and silence which makes her strangely mysterious. This remarkable painting shows what Cano was capable of at his very best. The vigour of the hands and the hieratic and yet sensual expression in the face is the work of one of Spain’s great masters.
Cano has given St Catherine an unusually direct expression which suggests she was a portrait and yet he still leaves a side of her face in deep shadow as was his habit. It was fashionable at the time for women to have their portraits painted whilst adopting the role of one of the Saints. Cano, like Zurbaran, famously never liked to paint anything unless it was in front of him and St Catherine is clearly painted from life. The artist has subtly captured the mystery of this beautiful woman and the result is one of his finest paintings and an outstanding example of Spanish Baroque portraiture.
Back to Noteable Sales Achieved >>