Lot 150: Ignacio de Iriarte (Azcoitia 1621-1670 Seville)

Jacob and his household journeying to meet Esau; and Laban searching for the images of Jacob as secreted by Rachel
oil on canvas
40 7/8 x 35 in. (103.7 x 88.9 cm.)
a pair (2)

(Possibly) James Duff, 4th Earl of Fife, Duff House, Banff, and by descent to
Alexander William George, 1st Duke of Fife (1849-1912), Duff house, Banff; his sale, Christie's, London, 7 June 1907, lot 55 (12 gns. to Savage).

THE PROPERTY FROM A SCANDANAVIAN COLLECTION

Little is known about the career of Ignacio de Iriarte beyond his reputation as the leading Baroque landscape painter of his generation in Seville. In the second half of the seventeenth century he was the most sought after artist in Seville after Murillo and his reputation was presumably still intact when the present pictures entered into the collection of the Duke of Fife more than a century later. That Iriarte has now sunk into relative obscurity can largely be accounted for by the uncertain nature of his oeuvre and the difficulty in identifying his work (see D. Kinkead, 'Nuevos datos sobre los pintores don Sebastián de Lanos y Valdés e Ignacio de Iriarte', Archivum Hispanol, LXII, 1979, pp. 191-211). The benchmark for all attributions is generally regarded as the Landscape with Shepherds which is signed and dated 1665 (Prado, Madrid, inv. no. 836).

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