Lot 337: CLEMENTE DE TORRES CADIZ 1662 - 1730

oil on canvas, unframed

175 by 332 cm.; 69 by 140 1/2 in.

Seville, Exposición Valdés Leal y de arte retrospectivo, 1922, no. 17, as doubtful as Valdés Leal.

D.T. Kinkead, Juan de Valdés Leal (1622-1690) His Life and Work, New Yok/London 1978, p. 467, no. 144d, as imitator of Valdés Leal, about 1690?;
E. Valdevieso, Juan de Valdés Leal, Seville 1988, p. 288, as Anonymous Sevillian artist, late 17th century.

Carmen Kith, Seville.

This and the following lot, which share the same provenance, are likely to have formed part of the decoration for a convent of nuns of the Dominican order in or near Seville. Both paintings were exhibited in Seville in 1922 as doubtfully by Valdés Leal and both Kinkead and Valdevieso (see Literature) have subsequently published the present work without a firm attribution. More recently, however, Professor Enrique Valdevieso has proposed an attribution to Clemente de Torres (written communication, 7 March 2002); a view endorsed, on the basis of photographs, by Professor Alfonso Pérez Sánchez (written communication, 14 February 2004). De Torres, who worked in the following of Valdés Leal, was active in Seville in the late 17th and early 18th century (see E. Valdevieso, Historia de la Pintura Sevillana Siglos XIII al XX, Seville 1992, pp. 296-7).