Juan de Valdés Leal, zugeschrieben
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, ehemals zugeschrieben
Johannes der Täufer mit dem Lamm, ca. 1660
In 1976 Jonathan Brown ascribed this drawing, which had been previously attributed to the school of Murillo," to Bartolomé Esteban Murillo himself, claiming that it was a characteristic example of the artist's works in red chalk and black pencil. Diego Angulo Iñiguez and Manuela Mena Marqués, both of whom considered it a copy after a lost original, did not accept that assessment. Brown repeated the attribution in 2012, based on the similarity of the sheet's draftsmanship to the drawing of San Diego (Saint Didacus) of Alcalá (inv. no. 38593, cat. no. 48), and placed it among Murillo's early works.
With regard to its technique and the simultaneous use of red chalk and black pencil, the sheet is virtually identical to the Saint Catherine (inv. no. 38624, cat. no. 166), which is unquestionably from the hand of Juan de Valdés Leal. As in that work, Valdés Leal applied his red chalk in the areas ordinarily reserved for black pencil. One sees traces of it in John's hair, his drapery, and the lamb's fur. Also similar are the relatively pointed fingers and the smaller, heavier strokes in black crayon that distribute separate accents across the sheet.
As part of the commission for which Valdés Leal produced the Saint Catherine, he drew a John the Baptist that is also in the chapel of la Quinta Angustia at the church of la Magdalena in Seville.[1] There, John the Baptist is pictured as a grown man. The association with the lamb is not quite so intimate, but the embrace is similar, and the depiction of Saint John continues to meet the customary iconographic requirements.
Moreover, since the shade of the red chalk is the same in both drawings, the present sheet can be dated to the same time around 1660. This is the period in which Murillo, Francisco de Herrera the Younger, Cornelis Schut III, and Valdés Leal founded the Academy in Seville from which a striking number of drawings found their way into this collection. This sheet, on which the figures are highly finished but the composition less so (the background is only suggested by a few delicate strokes), was apparently not translated into a painting.
Jens Hoffmann-Samland
1 See Valdivieso 1988, 102, illus. 74.
Details zu diesem Werk
Beschriftung fremd: Auf dem Verso nummeriert: "108" (Bleistift, unterstrichen)
[José Atanasio Echeverría]; Julian Benjamin Williams, Seville (d. 1866); John Wetherell (?) (d. 1865); Horatio/Nathan Wetherell (?) (until 1874); Frederick William Cosens, London (from 1874 to 1890); Sotheby's, London, auction of the property of Frederick William Cosens (from November 11 to 21, 1890); Bernard Quaritch Ltd., London (from November 1890 to July 1891); acquired by the Hamburger Kunsthalle (July 14, 1891).
Murillo & his Drawings, Jonathan Brown, 1976, S. 65, Abb.-Nr. , Kat.-Nr. 4
The Spanish Gesture. Drawings from Murillo to Goya in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Jens Hoffmann-Samland, with contributions by María Cruz de Carlos Varona, Gabriele Finaldi, José Manuel Matilla u. a., 2014, S. 106-107, Abb., 252, Abb.-Nr. , Kat.-Nr. 167
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617-1682), Manuela B. Mena Marqués, 1982, S. 89, Abb.-Nr. , Kat.-Nr. 12
Murillo: Virtuoso Draftsman, Jonathan Brown, 2012, S. 52-53, Abb.-Nr. , Kat.-Nr. 4
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617-1682) Catálogo razonado de los dibujos, Manuela B. Mena Marqués, 2014, Abb.-Nr. , Kat.-Nr. 124B
Exposición de dibujos de Murillo en Princeton, Diego Angulo Íñiguez, 1977, S. 338, Abb.-Nr.
Murillo. New Drawings, Old Problems. Master Drawings 21,2, Jonathan Brown, 1983, S. 160, Abb.-Nr.