Lot 325: f - JUAN CARREÑO DE MIRANDA AVILÉS, NEAR OVIEDO 1614 - 1685 MADRID

inscribed and dated in gold lower centre: PHILIPPO. IV. / DEI GRATIA / HISPANORUM. GENTIUM. / REGE. / CULTO. ET. AMOREI / CHRISTI CRUCIFIXI / EFIGIEN / A. JOANNE CARREÑO / DEPICTAM / EJUSDEM. AUCTOR / ANO MDCLVIII / L. D.

oil on panel

48.3 by 31.7 cm.; 19 by 12 1/2 in.

THE PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTOR

Given to King Philip IV of Spain (1605 - 1665) by the artist Juan Carreño de Miranda, according to the inscription;
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 29 May 1992, lot 330, for £60,000, whence acquired by the present owner.

This painted crucifix by Juan Carreño de Miranda is dated 1658, a key year in the artist's career. Carreño was active as an independent master by 1634, when he is recorded as working on a number of ecclesiastical commissions within Madrid, and his first surviving signed and dated work is from 1646 (representing Saint Anthony Preaching to the Fishes, now in the Museo Balaguer de Villanueva y Geltrú, Barcelona). He first established relations with the court of Philip IV during the early 1650s, although principally in the capacity as valuer of paintings from the estates of the nobility, such as don Francisco Díaz de Quevedo, whose effects he assessed on 6 May 1653. In 1658, the year of the present work, Carreño started working on the decoration of the royal palace of the Alcázar (his work subsequently destroyed in the fire of 1734), and it is surely no co-incidence that it was also in this year that he testified in favour of Velázquez in an investigation for the court painter's eligibility for the Order of Santiago, declaring that he had known the artist for over 34 years. The dating of the present work to 1658, as borne out by the inscription, suggests that in all probability it was painted as a gift from the artist for Philip IV, although Carreño was not actually appointed Pintor del Rey until 1667, through Queen Mary Anne of Austria, mother and regent of Philip IV's son Charles II.