Alonso Cano
Alonso Cano (Nachfolge), ehemals zugeschrieben
Kartuschenornament über einem Rahmen mit der Figur der Fama, 1649 (?)
This drawing for a festive decoration crowned by the allegorical figure of Fame must have been a design for the sort of ephemeral architectural decor erected for festivals or for the ceremonial entrance of royalty into a city. Alonso Cano is known to have worked on a set of such decorations in 1649, namely for the entry of Queen Mariana, the second wife of Philip IV.
As a washed pen drawing, it accords with the technique Cano favored, and the figure of Fame resembles other known drawings by the artist not only in her movement, but also in the shape and texture of her feathered wings.[1] The same is true of the ornamental forms of the scrolls and the rectangular frame.[2] Nonetheless, scholars differ in their viewpoints. Harold Wethey saw it as a work by a successor of Cano. Zahira Véliz did not include it in her catalogue of Cano drawings, which contains only works of unquestioned authorship. August Mayer, however, considered it an autograph work signed by the artist himself, and he was followed by Alfonso Pérez Sánchez in the latter's catalogue for the 1966 Hamburg exhibition.[3] Finally, the very self-assured placement of the inscription, which includes the signature followed by “inv[enit]” argue for the correctness of this assumption. At any rate, the subject of inscriptions on Cano's drawings has yet to be sufficiently studied, as Véliz recognized in her recent catalogue raisonné of that artist's drawings.[4] The enormous variety of inscriptions and signatures visible therein suggests that many could be apocryphal or simply later additions.
In that sense, and given that the handwriting of the present inscription resembles no other drawing known to be by Cano, it seems more prudent to maintain its status as a work attributed to him.
Jens Hoffmann-Samland
1 See Véliz 2011, 159, no. 2 (The Sacrifice of Isaac, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, D 47), in which corrections were pasted onto the sheet; the defect in the bottom framed panel of the Hamburg sheet doubtless attests to a comparable procedure; 343, no. 66 (Apparition of an Angel to Saint Dominic, Paris, private collection); 385, no. 79 (Angel Flying with the Trumpet of the Last Judgment, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, D 69, attributed by Wethey to Bocanegra); 391, no. 81 (The Crowning of a Poet-Soldier, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, D 78); for the rendering of the grasping hands, see for example, 271, no. 41 (The Archangel Michael, Florence, Uffizi, Gabinetto disegni e stampe, inv. no. 10259). The head of “Fama" moreover bears a striking resemblance to that of the figure on the left playing a trumpet in the Raphael drawing of Three Musicians (pen, 9 1/8 x 3 3/8 in. [232 x 85 mm], Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, inv. P II 525; see Knab, Mitsch, and Oberhuber 1983, 572 and illus. 175).
2 See Véliz 2011, 487, no. 117 (Decorative Foliated Bracket, Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, inv. AB878a); 489, no. 118 (Shelves and Brackets Borne by Angels, Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, inv. AB 879); and 493, no. 120 (Design for the Altarpiece of San Diego de Alcalá, New York, Morgan Library & Museum, inv. 1986.46/B3R3401).
3 Stubbe (dir) 1966. Benito Navarrete Prieto, Seville, kindly confirmed his conviction that it is the work of Cano himself in a personal conversation in March 2013.
4 Véliz 2011, 555-62.