Inexplicably, this small drawing was heretofore titled Saint Francis, despite the absence of his customary habit and tonsure. Physically, the figure more closely resembles depictions of Saint Joseph, and the presence of a rod supports that idea. The tentative, cautious drawing makes it very possible that José Atanasio
Echeverría was the author of the work, although a manuscript proposes Domingo Martínez as the author of this and the previous drawing (see inv. no. 38525, cat. no. 40).[1]
As Echeverría's inventory observes, this artist follows the style of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo and, like the latter, he also depicts Joseph as a still very young
man.[2] That the drawing has been squared could suggest that it was meant to be transferred to another medium, but it also could mean that it was copied from a pattern that has not as yet been discovered.

Jens Hoffmann-Samland


1 See note 1 to inv. no. 38525, cat. no. 40.
2 See, for example, Murillo's Joseph with the Christ Child in a private collection in Westmeath (Ireland), in Valdivieso 2010, 501, no. 338.

Details about this work

• Provenance

  [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).

• Bibliography

  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. 199, Abb., Abb.-Nr. , Kat.-Nr. 41